Communicating Relative Risk Changes with Baseline Risk: Presentation Format and Numeracy Matter

Conclusions. Presenting baseline risk in a frequency format improves understanding of relative risk information, whereas a percentage format is likely to lead to misunderstandings. People’s numeracy skills play an important role in correctly understanding medical information. Overall, communicating treatment benefits and harms in the form of relative risk changes remains problematic, even when the baseline risk is explicitly provided.
Source: Medical Decision Making - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research