Most patients withhold information from their doctor, a new study has found.

4510 patients participated in two separate but identical surveys. In the respondent group with a mean age of 36, 81% admitted avoiding telling a physician at least one of seven types of medically relevant information, while in the sample with a mean age of 61, this figure was 61%.

For both groups failures to disclose were highest for items related to clinician communication.

For the younger and older samples, results showed the respondents did not report disagreeing with the clinician’s recommendation (45.7% and 31.4% respectively), not understanding the clinician’s instructions (32% and 24%), not disclosing relevant health behaviors, such as an unhealthy diet (25% and 20%) and not exercising (both 22%).

While nondisclosure about various types of information about medication use was less common compared with the other types of information, a substantial minority of respondents (9% and 23%) indicated nondisclosure of this type of information to their clinician.

The most commonly indicated reasons for participants not disclosing information to their clinician were not wanting to be judged or lectured, not wanting to hear how harmful the behavior is, embarrassment, not wanting the clinician to think that they are a difficult patient and not wanting to take up more of the clinician’s time.