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An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists

PURPOSE: Medical errors in radiation oncology sometimes involve tasks reliant on practitioners’ grasp of numeracy. Numeracy has been shown to be suboptimal across various health care professionals. Herein, we assess health numeracy among American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) members. M...

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Autores principales: Peters, Gabrielle W., Kelly, Jacqueline R., Beckta, Jason M., White, Marney, Marks, Lawrence B., Ford, Eric, Evans, Suzanne B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8134660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34027232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adro.2020.10.022
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author Peters, Gabrielle W.
Kelly, Jacqueline R.
Beckta, Jason M.
White, Marney
Marks, Lawrence B.
Ford, Eric
Evans, Suzanne B.
author_facet Peters, Gabrielle W.
Kelly, Jacqueline R.
Beckta, Jason M.
White, Marney
Marks, Lawrence B.
Ford, Eric
Evans, Suzanne B.
author_sort Peters, Gabrielle W.
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: Medical errors in radiation oncology sometimes involve tasks reliant on practitioners’ grasp of numeracy. Numeracy has been shown to be suboptimal across various health care professionals. Herein, we assess health numeracy among American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) members. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The Numeracy Understanding for Medicine instrument (NUMi), an instrument to measure numeracy in the general population, was adapted to oncology for this study and distributed to ASRT members (n = 14,228) in 2017. Per NUMi scoring, health numeracy scores were categorized as low (0-7), low average (8-12), high average (13-17), or high (18-20). The impact of cGy versus Gy on numeracy performance was investigated. Spearman’s rho and a Wilcox-Mann-Whitney test were used for comparisons between the different groups. RESULTS: A total of 662 eligible participants completed the instrument and identified as radiation oncology professionals. In the cGy and Gy NUMi scores, approximately 2% of respondents scored low-average, approximately 40% scored high-average, and approximately 58% scored high, with a median score of 18.0. Although the optimum NUMi score for ASRT members is unknown, one might expect our cohort to have numeracy skills at least as high as college freshmen. Roughly one-sixth of our study group scored at or below the average score of college freshmen (NUMi = 15). In the subset analysis of NUMi questions pertaining to radiation dose unit (cGy vs Gy), respondents performed better with cGy (mean score: 2.94; range, 2-3) versus Gy (mean: 2.91; range, 0-3; P = .011). CONCLUSIONS: In this study of limited sample size, overall numeracy is quite good compared with the general population. However, the range of scores is wide, and some respondents have lower scores that may be concerning, suggesting that numeracy may be an issue that requires improvement for a subset of the studied cohort. Performance was superior with the unit cGy; thus, the adoption of cGy as the standard unit is reasonable.
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spelling pubmed-81346602021-05-21 An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists Peters, Gabrielle W. Kelly, Jacqueline R. Beckta, Jason M. White, Marney Marks, Lawrence B. Ford, Eric Evans, Suzanne B. Adv Radiat Oncol Scientific Article PURPOSE: Medical errors in radiation oncology sometimes involve tasks reliant on practitioners’ grasp of numeracy. Numeracy has been shown to be suboptimal across various health care professionals. Herein, we assess health numeracy among American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) members. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The Numeracy Understanding for Medicine instrument (NUMi), an instrument to measure numeracy in the general population, was adapted to oncology for this study and distributed to ASRT members (n = 14,228) in 2017. Per NUMi scoring, health numeracy scores were categorized as low (0-7), low average (8-12), high average (13-17), or high (18-20). The impact of cGy versus Gy on numeracy performance was investigated. Spearman’s rho and a Wilcox-Mann-Whitney test were used for comparisons between the different groups. RESULTS: A total of 662 eligible participants completed the instrument and identified as radiation oncology professionals. In the cGy and Gy NUMi scores, approximately 2% of respondents scored low-average, approximately 40% scored high-average, and approximately 58% scored high, with a median score of 18.0. Although the optimum NUMi score for ASRT members is unknown, one might expect our cohort to have numeracy skills at least as high as college freshmen. Roughly one-sixth of our study group scored at or below the average score of college freshmen (NUMi = 15). In the subset analysis of NUMi questions pertaining to radiation dose unit (cGy vs Gy), respondents performed better with cGy (mean score: 2.94; range, 2-3) versus Gy (mean: 2.91; range, 0-3; P = .011). CONCLUSIONS: In this study of limited sample size, overall numeracy is quite good compared with the general population. However, the range of scores is wide, and some respondents have lower scores that may be concerning, suggesting that numeracy may be an issue that requires improvement for a subset of the studied cohort. Performance was superior with the unit cGy; thus, the adoption of cGy as the standard unit is reasonable. Elsevier 2020-11-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8134660/ /pubmed/34027232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adro.2020.10.022 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Scientific Article
Peters, Gabrielle W.
Kelly, Jacqueline R.
Beckta, Jason M.
White, Marney
Marks, Lawrence B.
Ford, Eric
Evans, Suzanne B.
An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists
title An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists
title_full An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists
title_fullStr An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists
title_full_unstemmed An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists
title_short An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists
title_sort evaluation of health numeracy among radiation therapists and dosimetrists
topic Scientific Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8134660/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34027232
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adro.2020.10.022
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