Perils, Pitfalls, and Possibilities in Talking About Medical Risk

Personalised medicine: The cognitive side of patients

“…A key point in the information exchange between health professionals and patients regards the likelihood of benefit and the risk of harm of a given treatment [30]. The optimum methods for expressing such information have not yet been determined but it appears that information on side effects in numerical form, rather than verbal descriptors, results in a more accurate estimation [16].…”

“…In general terms, it seems that the best strategy to communicate risks is ultimately a multifaceted approach that describes both the unwanted outcome and the frequency of that outcome using a combination of techniques, such as qualitative terms, numerical expression, examples from everyday life, and maybe some visual aids such as graphs or booklets (some guidelines to create well designed booklets may be found in [32]). The healthcare professional may select which format is most helpful for a given patient, and build the discussion around that [30]. Such a strategy accommodates patients with different preferences and abilities for understanding risk information.…”

Doctor Patient Communication—A Vital Yet Neglected Entity in Indian Medical Education System

“…When done well, such communication produces a therapeutic effect for the patient and is single most effective predictor of patient adherence to a treatment plan, as has been validated in controlled studies. In fact, research has shown that effective patient-physician communication can improve a patient's health as quantifiably as many drugs and perhaps providing an explanation for the powerful placebo effect seen in clinical trials [1][2][3][4].…”

Epidemiological and statistical considerations for interpreting and communicating oncology clinical trials

“…There is increasing information available on risk communication in the medical setting which can be extrapolated to veterinary medicine (Bogardus et al, 1999;Fagerlin et al, 2011;Marewski and Gigerenzer, 2012;Bodemer et al, 2014). As it is often the owner who must make the final decision or, at the very least, fund the decision that has been made, it is important that the information that has been identified by RCTs is not only understood by the clinician, but also by the client.…”