Communicating Absolute Fracture Risk Reduction and the Acceptance of Treatment for Osteoporosis

Healthcare professionals frequently communicate the benefits of treatments as a relative risk reduction (RRR) in the likelihood of an event occurring. Here we evaluated whether presenting the benefits of osteoporosis treatment as a RRR in fractures compared with an absolute risk reduction (ARR) changed the patient’s attitudes towards accepting treatment. We surveyed 160 individuals attending a specialised osteoporosis clinic for face-to-face consultations between May 2018 and Jan 2021. They were presented with information on RRR for the treatment being considered followed by ARR and after each question were asked about how likely they would be to start treatment on a 5-point scale (1 = very likely, 5 = very unlikely). Participants were less likely to accept treatment when it was presented as ARR (mean score 2.02 vs. 2.67, p < 0.001, 95% CI for difference − 0.82 vs − 0.47) and thirty-eight participants (23.7%) declined treatment with knowledge of their ARR when they would have accepted the same treatment based on the RRR. Individuals who declined treatment had a lower 5-year risk of fracture than those who accepted treatment (9.0 vs. 12.5%, p < 0.001, 95% CI − 5.0 to − 1.6) and as fracture risk decreased, the participant was less likely to accept treatment (Spearman r − 0.32, 95% CI − 0.46 to − 0.17, p ≤ 0.001). Whilst presentation of data as ARR more accurately reflects individual benefit and helps facilitate shared decision-making, clinicians should be aware that this will lead to a proportion of patients with lower fracture risk declining treatment for osteoporosis.