Porcentaje de quienes luego se arrepienten de cada elección. Las barras y el registro completo aparecen abajo.
Salud
Última revisión 2026-06-14
Calidad de la evidencia 4.25/5
Puntuación de revisión en ocho dimensiones según la
rúbrica de calidad
. Cada dimensión puntuada de 1 a 5.
D1 Verificación de fuentes
5/5
D2 Autoridad e independencia de las fuentes
4/5
D3 Precisión de la tasa de arrepentimiento
2/5
D4 Comparabilidad de las fuentes
3/5
D5 Patrón de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Calidad de la prosa
5/5
D7 Completitud de las advertencias
5/5
D8 Calidad de la muestra
5/5
Media4.25/5
Arrepentimiento por acción
Ir a terapia
27%
El 27% de los asistentes a terapia no la encontró útil (proxy para el arrepentimiento basado en utilidad)
Adultos del Reino Unido que han ido a terapia, nacionalmente representativo
retrospectivo, marco temporal variable
Arrepentimiento por inacción
No ir a terapia
33%
~33% de los no buscadores de terapia entre adultos estadounidenses expresan demanda latente (considerada pero nunca buscada — proxy para el arrepentimiento por inacción)
Adultos estadounidenses que nunca han buscado atención de salud mental, nacionalmente representativo
¿Qué fracción de los adultos estadounidenses que desarrollan depresión mayor o un trastorno de ansiedad no reciben ningún tratamiento de salud mental durante al menos un año?
Among UK adults who have had therapy, 27% did not find it helpful (BACP/YouGov 2025, n=5,150); among US adults who have never sought mental health care, approximately 33% express latent demand — they want care but have not pursued it (APA/Harris Poll 2025, n=1,076). The bilateral comparison is directionally consistent with Gilovich and Medvec’s inaction-dominance model, but the 6-percentage-point gap is computed from incomparable populations — UK therapy-attenders versus US non-attenders — and should not be read as a precise effect size. The pattern is classified as balanced: the signal points toward inaction carrying more regret, but the cross-national measurement gap prevents a stronger directional claim.
The data-quality limitations are layered. The action-side BACP figure is the stronger instrument: a large, nationally representative YouGov survey asking therapy-attenders to assess their own outcomes. Its weakness is framing — “not helpful” captures a broad range of outcomes from genuine harm to mild disappointment, and the 27% unhelpfulness rate sits well above the 5.2% lasting-harm rate found in Crawford et al.’s NHS patient survey (n=14,587), confirming that most of the 27% experienced disappointment rather than lasting damage. The inaction-side rate is a derived figure: 17% of all US adults said they want mental health care but have not sought it, out of 51% who had never sought care, yielding 33% latent demand among non-attenders. Latent demand is prospective (want to go) rather than retrospective (wish I had gone), which likely understates actual regret in older cohorts where the opportunity cost has already accumulated.
Two structural confounders qualify any strong directional claim. First, access barriers make much inaction involuntary: NHS England waiting lists, US insurance gaps, cost, and persistent stigma mean that a share of non-attenders who want care cannot readily obtain it, conflating structural barriers with personal decision regret. Second, cross-national asymmetry in the data — UK for the action side, US for the inaction side — introduces noise because NHS cost-free access and US insurance-dependent access produce different selection effects in who enters therapy and who doesn’t. Within those limits, the data are consistent with the established finding that long-run regret accumulates more on the side of inaction than action, though the effect size here is too small to carry strong causal weight.
Fuentes: acción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
1/2 fuentes verificadas de forma independiente palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada
[1]British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy / YouGov — BACP Public Perceptions Survey 2025
Fuente de referencia
73% of UK adults who have had therapy found it helpful; 27% did not
Extracto
“"More than seven in 10 adults who've had therapy found it helpful (73%) and three quarters (75%) would recommend it to anyone looking for mental health support and to improve their wellbeing."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2025-03-04
Accedido
2026-05-01
Cálculo
BACP/YouGov 2025 Public Perceptions Survey (n=5,150 UK adults, nationally representative). 73% of therapy-attenders found therapy helpful, implying 27% did not (1 - 0.73 = 0.27). This is used as the action-side regret proxy: therapy-attenders who did not find treatment helpful are the subgroup most likely to regret having attended. "Not helpful" and "regret going" are not the same construct — a person can find therapy emotionally challenging but ultimately beneficial, and a person can find a single course unhelpful without regretting the attempt. The 27% figure likely overstates harm-based regret and understates indifference-based outcomes. D3 score: 3 (real survey measuring helpfulness, a recognized proxy for regret rather than a direct regret instrument). Used as the primary action-side rate because it is the largest nationally representative UK survey measuring therapy outcome from the patient's perspective.
[2]British Journal of Psychiatry / Crawford et al. — Patient experience of negative effects of psychological treatment: results of a national survey
Verificado
Revisado por pares
5.2% of 14,587 NHS psychotherapy patients in England and Wales reported lasting negative effects from their psychological treatment
Extracto
“"Of 14,587 respondents who had received psychological treatment, 763 (5.2%) reported experiencing lasting bad effects. Patients treated with cognitive behaviour therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy were included across 184 different NHS services."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2016-03-01
Accedido
2026-05-02
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
Crawford et al. (2016) surveyed 14,587 NHS patients who received psychotherapy across 184 services and found 5.2% reported lasting negative effects. This is the largest published national survey of therapy harm and provides a conservative floor for harm-based regret. The 5.2% rate sits well below the BACP 2025 "not helpful" figure of 27%, confirming that lasting harm is a smaller subcomponent of overall treatment dissatisfaction. This source corroborates that the action-side floor for serious harm-based regret is low. Included as a corroborating peer-reviewed source; the primary action-side rate (0.27) is drawn from the BACP 2025 survey.
Fuentes: inacción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
1/1 fuentes verificadas de forma independiente palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada
[1]American Psychological Association / The Harris Poll — Public Attitudes Toward Mental Health in the U.S.
Verificado
Fuente de referencia
17% of all US adults want mental health care in the future but have not yet sought it; 34% have never sought care and don't want to — yielding 17/(17+34) = 33% latent demand among non-attenders
Extracto
“"More adults said they have sought mental health care in the past (45%), and close to 1 in 5 said they want to in the future (17%). Only one-third of adults (34%) said they had never sought professional mental health care and do not want to." Survey of 1,076 U.S. adults ages 18+, conducted online by The Harris Poll in partnership with APA, April 18-21, 2025.
”
Datos de la fuente de
2025-04-21
Accedido
2026-05-01
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
APA/Harris Poll 2025 (n=1,076 US adults, nationally representative, April 18-21 2025). The survey identified three mutually exclusive groups: those who sought care in the past (45%), those who want to in the future but haven't (17%), and those who never sought and don't want to (34%). The remaining ~4% are likely currently in care or did not respond. Among non-attenders (17% + 34% = 51% of the sample), 17/51 = 33% express latent demand (want care but haven't sought it). This 33% is used as the inaction-side regret proxy: non-attenders with latent demand are the subgroup most likely to retrospectively regret not having sought help. Construct limitation: "want care in the future" is not equivalent to "regret not having gone already" — latent demand is a forward-looking aspiration, while regret is a backward-looking counterfactual. Access barriers (cost, insurance, availability) mean some latent demand reflects structural obstacles rather than personal decision regret. Cross-national note: this is US data, not UK; the UK setting for the action side has different access structures (NHS, means-tested IAPT waitlists). UK latent demand data were searched across BACP/YouGov, MIND UK, Mental Health Foundation, NHS APMS 2023-24, and Rethink Mental Illness; no comparable nationally representative instrument was found that asked non-attenders directly about latent demand. The APA/Harris estimate (33%) is broadly consistent with UK treatment-gap literature and is used here as the best available nationally representative proxy.
Advertencias
Ninguno de los dos lados de esta entrada lleva una tasa de arrepentimiento medida directamente. El 27% del lado acción (BACP/YouGov 2025, n=5.150 adultos del Reino Unido) mide la fracción de asistentes a terapia que no la encontraron útil — «no útil» y «me arrepiento de haber ido» son constructos distintos. Una persona puede encontrar la terapia difícil o inconclusiva sin arrepentirse del intento, y puede encontrar un solo curso no útil mientras se beneficia de tratamientos posteriores. BACP es una asociación profesional para terapeutas; su encuesta fue encargada por un organismo con interés financiero en la adopción de la terapia, lo cual puede sesgar el encuadre «útil» hacia resultados positivos. El 33% del lado inacción (APA/Harris Poll 2025, n=1.076 adultos de EE. UU.) es una tasa de demanda latente derivada: el 17% de todos los adultos estadounidenses quiere atención pero no la ha buscado, dividido por el 51% que nunca la ha buscado, da el 33% de los no asistentes expresando demanda prospectiva (el ~4% restante probablemente está actualmente en atención o no respondió esa pregunta). La demanda latente no equivale al arrepentimiento retrospectivo. Una parte significativa de la inacción es involuntaria: los tiempos de espera del NHS (Inglaterra), las brechas de seguros (EE. UU.), las barreras de costo y el estigma persistente restringen el acceso independientemente de la preferencia individual. La asimetría transnacional es una limitación fundamental: el lado acción utiliza datos del Reino Unido (BACP/YouGov, Crawford NHS) y el lado inacción utiliza datos de EE. UU. (APA/Harris). El acceso dependiente del seguro en EE. UU. y el acceso gratuito del NHS producen efectos de selección distintos en quienes entran en terapia y quienes no; la brecha de 6 puntos porcentuales entre poblaciones incomparables no debería leerse como un tamaño de efecto preciso. El gilovich_pattern por lo tanto se clasifica como balanceado en lugar de inaction_dominates: la señal direccional es consistente con el modelo de dominancia de la inacción de Gilovich y Medvec, pero la brecha de medición transnacional significa que el delta no puede soportar una afirmación direccional más fuerte. Ambas poblaciones muestran tasas comparables de adopción de terapia de aproximadamente 35-45% de por vida.
