When your doctor asks how often you exercise, do you give her an honest answer? How about when she asks what you’ve been eating lately? If you’ve ever stretched the truth, you’re not alone.

当你的医生问你多久锻炼一次时，你会诚实地回答她吗?如果她问你最近吃了什么呢?如果你曾经夸大事实，这样做的可不止你一个人。

60 to 80 percent of people surveyed have not been forthcoming with their doctors about information that could be relevant to their health, according to a new study. Besides fibbing about diet and exercise, more than a third of respondents didn’t speak up when they disagreed with their doctor’s recommendation. Another common scenario¹ was failing to admit they didn’t understand their clinician’s instructions.

一项最新研究显示，60%至80%的受访者不愿向医生透露可能与自己健康有关的信息。除了在饮食和锻炼方面撒个小谎外，超过三分之一的受访者不愿直言反对医生的建议。另一种常见情况是，不承认自己无法理解临床医生的指示。

When respondents explained why they weren’t transparent², most said that they wanted to avoid being judged, and didn’t want to be lectured about how bad certain behaviors were. More than half were simply too embarrassed to tell the truth.

在解释为什么不坦诚直言时，大多数受访者说，他们不想被评判，也不想被医生训斥他们的某些行为有多糟。半数以上的人觉得说真话太尴尬。

"Most people want their doctor to think highly of them," says the study’s senior author Angela Fagerlin, Ph.D., chair of population health sciences at U of U Health and a research scientist with the VA Salt Lake City Health System’s Informatics Decision-Enhancement and Analytic³ Sciences (IDEAS) Center for Innovation.

这项研究报告资深作者、美国犹他大学卫生中心人口健康科学教授安杰拉·法格林说：“大多数人希望医生对他们有好看法。”

"They’re worried about being pigeonholed⁴ as someone who doesn’t make good decisions," she adds.

她还说：“他们担心被归类为做出不好决定的人。”

Scientists at University of Utah Health and Middlesex Community College led the research study in collaboration⁵ with colleagues at University of Michigan and University of Iowa. The results will be published online in JAMA Network Open on November 30, 2018.

领导开展这项研究的是犹他大学健康学院和米德尔塞克斯社区学院的科学家。研究结果于11月30日刊登在《美国医学会杂志·网络开放》期刊网站上。

Insights into the doctor-patient relationship came from a national online survey of two populations. One survey captured responses from 2,011 participants who averaged 36 years old. The second was administered to 2,499 participants who were 61 on average.

这些对医患关系的深入了解来自一项针对两个群体的全国性网上调查。一项调查收集了平均年龄36岁的2011名参与者的回答。第二项调查的参与者平均年龄61岁，共有2499人参加。

"I’m surprised that such a substantial number of people chose to withhold⁶ relatively⁷ benign⁸ information, and that they would admit to it," says the study’s first author Andrea Gurmankin Levy⁹, Ph.D., MBe, an associate professor in social sciences at Middlesex Community College in Middletown, Connecticut. "

该研究报告的第一作者、位于康涅狄格州的米德尔塞克斯社区学院的社会学副教授安德烈娅·利维说：“如此多的人选择隐瞒相对无害的信息，而且愿意承认这一点，我对此感到很惊讶。”

The trouble with a patient’s dishonesty is that doctors can’t offer accurate medical advice when they don’t have all the facts.

患者不诚实导致的麻烦在于，在没有掌握全部事实的情况下，医生无法提供准确的医疗建议。

"If patients are withholding¹⁰ information about what they’re eating, or whether they are taking their medication, it can have significant implications for their health. Especially if they have a chronic¹¹ illness," says Levy.

利维说：“如果患者隐瞒自己在吃什么或是否服药的信息，可能对他们的健康产生重大影响，尤其是如果他们有慢性病的话。”