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Health professionals prefer to communicate risk-related numerical information using “1-in-X” ratios
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Sirota, Miroslav, Juanchich, Marie, Petrova, Dafina, Garcia-Retamero, Rocio, Walasek, Lukasz and Bhatia, Sudeep (2018) Health professionals prefer to communicate risk-related numerical information using “1-in-X” ratios. Medical Decision Making, 38 (3). pp. 366-376.
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Official URL: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/mdm
Abstract
Previous research showed that format effects such as the “1-in-X” effect – whereby “1-in-X” ratios lead to a higher perceived probability than “N-in-N*X” ratios – alter perceptions of medical probabilities. We do not know, however, how prevalent this effect is in practice – whether health professionals often use “1-in-X” ratios. We assembled four different sources of evidence, involving experimental work and corpus studies, to examine the use of “1-in-X” and other numerical formats quantifying probability. Our results revealed that the use of “1-in-X”
ratios is prevalent and that health professionals prefer this format compared with other numerical formats (i.e., the “N-in-N*X”, %, and decimal formats). In Study 1, UK family physicians preferred to communicate prenatal risk using a “1-in-X” ratio (80.4%, n = 131) across different risk levels and regardless of patients’ numeracy levels. In Study 2, a sample from the UK adult population (n = 203), reported that most GPs (60.6%) preferred to use “1-in-X” ratios compared
with other formats. In Study 3, “1-in-X” ratios were the most commonly used format in a set of randomly sampled drug leaflets describing the risk of side effects (100%, n = 94). In Study 4, the “1-in-X” format was the most commonly used numerical expression of medical probabilities or
frequencies on the UK’s NHS website (45.7%, n = 2,469 sentences). The prevalent use of “1-in- X” ratios magnifies the chances of increased subjective probability. Further research should establish clinical significance of the “1-in-X” effect.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Medical Decision Making | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Sage Publications, Inc. | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0272-989X | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 April 2018 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 38 | ||||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 366-376 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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