~70% Of This Group Lie To Their Doctor

So when Dr. House asked on his TV show “do I get bonus points if I act like I care?” – the short answer, at least circa 2022, is heck yeah. There are a lot of ways to get bonus points these days in healthcare, like figuring out that gramma has been taking her meds with crunchy peanut butter or getting the 17 year old with anorexia back to school and weight within 6 months, and, yes, even for having a high portion of patients who say they like you. But the issue isn't so much if the doctor or therapist care, it's if your patients do.

And nearly 70% in our poll of 13,262 15-25 year olds say they don't, divulging that they often lie to doctors and nurses. Those are “facts dad,” as my kids would say. The youth say they have lied about a range of things, like family history, taking medicine, blood in their stool, the extent of their pain or whether they have drank or smoked. “It’s just not something I will admit or want to talk about–not in person and probably not on a zoom, and not to someone I see once a year,” said one 21-year-old female. Just 9% said they are honest on those depression forms they fill out in the waiting room (unless they are lying about this too!). A 23-year-old said he runs every other day and feels great but his doctor said he had high levels of iron and wanted to run some tests (presumably I would think to account for the possibility of heart or liver disease), but he ignored the doctor. The Tik Tok generation thinks they have all the answers but when it comes to revealing their behaviors or engaging with physicians, they are reluctant. Sort of confirms what Dr. House used to say on TV, that it is a basic truth of the human condition that everybody lies – the only variable is about what. Nearly half of these young adults say they tend to lie because they don’t see the value in the visit to begin with. “It’s usually just something I’m required to do or all I get is a medicine that makes me tired or more sick, or they tell me I can’t do something,” an 18-year-old male said. This is probably not earthshattering news – youth going back to the beginning of time have always felt both invincible and smarter.  I felt like I could live forever circa 1979, all I needed was my Huffy, my Panasonic walkman, Survivor's Vital Signs cassette, a velour blue turtleneck and a pair of cords. No doctor could convince me otherwise. But flash forward, the advent of new forms of healthcare and a renewed emphasis on preventive care, it’s probably important to consider youth's resistance, their mindset and their angst, and then find ways to engage and build trust. It may get you bonus points, and it may even save a life and keep in mind, as one George Costanza would say….“it’s not a lie, if you believe it.”