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Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review

INTRODUCTION: Many health providers and communicators who are concerned that patients will not understand numbers instead use verbal probabilities (e.g., terms such as “rare” or “common”) to convey the gist of a health message. OBJECTIVE: To assess patient interpretation of and preferences for verba...

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Autores principales: Andreadis, Katerina, Chan, Ethan, Park, Minha, Benda, Natalie C, Sharma, Mohit M, Demetres, Michelle, Delgado, Diana, Sigworth, Elizabeth, Chen, Qingxia, Liu, Andrew, Grossman Liu, Lisa, Sharko, Marianne, Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J, Ancker, Jessica S
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8642516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34357577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11606-021-07050-7
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author Andreadis, Katerina
Chan, Ethan
Park, Minha
Benda, Natalie C
Sharma, Mohit M
Demetres, Michelle
Delgado, Diana
Sigworth, Elizabeth
Chen, Qingxia
Liu, Andrew
Grossman Liu, Lisa
Sharko, Marianne
Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J
Ancker, Jessica S
author_facet Andreadis, Katerina
Chan, Ethan
Park, Minha
Benda, Natalie C
Sharma, Mohit M
Demetres, Michelle
Delgado, Diana
Sigworth, Elizabeth
Chen, Qingxia
Liu, Andrew
Grossman Liu, Lisa
Sharko, Marianne
Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J
Ancker, Jessica S
author_sort Andreadis, Katerina
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Many health providers and communicators who are concerned that patients will not understand numbers instead use verbal probabilities (e.g., terms such as “rare” or “common”) to convey the gist of a health message. OBJECTIVE: To assess patient interpretation of and preferences for verbal probability information in health contexts. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of literature published through September 2020. Original studies conducted in English with samples representative of lay populations were included if they assessed health-related information and elicited either (a) numerical estimates of verbal probability terms or (b) preferences for verbal vs. quantitative risk information. RESULTS: We identified 33 original studies that referenced 145 verbal probability terms, 45 of which were included in at least two studies and 19 in three or more. Numerical interpretations of each verbal term were extremely variable. For example, average interpretations of the term “rare” ranged from 7 to 21%, and for “common,” the range was 34 to 71%. In a subset of 9 studies, lay estimates of verbal probability terms were far higher than the standard interpretations established by the European Commission for drug labels. In 10 of 12 samples where preferences were elicited, most participants preferred numerical information, alone or in combination with verbal labels. CONCLUSION: Numerical interpretation of verbal probabilities is extremely variable and does not correspond well to the numerical probabilities established by expert panels. Most patients appear to prefer quantitative risk information, alone or in combination with verbal labels. Health professionals should be aware that avoiding numeric information to describe risks may not match patient preferences, and that patients interpret verbal risk terms in a highly variable way. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-021-07050-7.
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spelling pubmed-86425162021-12-15 Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review Andreadis, Katerina Chan, Ethan Park, Minha Benda, Natalie C Sharma, Mohit M Demetres, Michelle Delgado, Diana Sigworth, Elizabeth Chen, Qingxia Liu, Andrew Grossman Liu, Lisa Sharko, Marianne Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J Ancker, Jessica S J Gen Intern Med Systematic Review INTRODUCTION: Many health providers and communicators who are concerned that patients will not understand numbers instead use verbal probabilities (e.g., terms such as “rare” or “common”) to convey the gist of a health message. OBJECTIVE: To assess patient interpretation of and preferences for verbal probability information in health contexts. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of literature published through September 2020. Original studies conducted in English with samples representative of lay populations were included if they assessed health-related information and elicited either (a) numerical estimates of verbal probability terms or (b) preferences for verbal vs. quantitative risk information. RESULTS: We identified 33 original studies that referenced 145 verbal probability terms, 45 of which were included in at least two studies and 19 in three or more. Numerical interpretations of each verbal term were extremely variable. For example, average interpretations of the term “rare” ranged from 7 to 21%, and for “common,” the range was 34 to 71%. In a subset of 9 studies, lay estimates of verbal probability terms were far higher than the standard interpretations established by the European Commission for drug labels. In 10 of 12 samples where preferences were elicited, most participants preferred numerical information, alone or in combination with verbal labels. CONCLUSION: Numerical interpretation of verbal probabilities is extremely variable and does not correspond well to the numerical probabilities established by expert panels. Most patients appear to prefer quantitative risk information, alone or in combination with verbal labels. Health professionals should be aware that avoiding numeric information to describe risks may not match patient preferences, and that patients interpret verbal risk terms in a highly variable way. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-021-07050-7. Springer International Publishing 2021-08-06 2021-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8642516/ /pubmed/34357577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11606-021-07050-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Systematic Review
Andreadis, Katerina
Chan, Ethan
Park, Minha
Benda, Natalie C
Sharma, Mohit M
Demetres, Michelle
Delgado, Diana
Sigworth, Elizabeth
Chen, Qingxia
Liu, Andrew
Grossman Liu, Lisa
Sharko, Marianne
Zikmund-Fisher, Brian J
Ancker, Jessica S
Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review
title Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review
title_full Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review
title_fullStr Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review
title_full_unstemmed Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review
title_short Imprecision and Preferences in Interpretation of Verbal Probabilities in Health: a Systematic Review
title_sort imprecision and preferences in interpretation of verbal probabilities in health: a systematic review
topic Systematic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8642516/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34357577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11606-021-07050-7
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