A Descriptive Decision-making Model of Patients’ Treatment Decision Using Dempster-shafer Theory and Prospect Theory

This paper explains our proposed descriptive decision-making model under uncertainty elucidating different decision attitudes of humans. In this decision-making model, Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) is used to represent uncertainty of the problem and the uncertainty is approximated by a probability distribution depending on the decision-makers’ attitude towards uncertainty. Prospect theory is then applied to accomplish a descriptive decision-making model. We use the proposed model to illustrate and explain how patients make decisions in case of elective treatment and how their decisions vary with their attitudes towards uncertainty. We have also experimentally determined reliable values of the coefficient of loss aversion and risk attitude. This application area holds great importance in health related decisionmaking.