Trial reportJournal of general internal medicine2010
How to reduce the effect of framing on messages about health.
Trial report in Journal of general internal medicine, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of factors associated with side-effect expectations from medical interventions.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2020Pooled it
- Access to results of patient reported outcome surveys did not improve longitudinal patient reported outcomes in breast cancer patients in a randomized controlled trial.American journal of surgery · 2025Trial
- Risk communication in cataract surgery.BMJ open ophthalmology · 2024Trial
- A randomized experimental study to test the effects of discussing uncertainty during cancer genetic counseling: different strategies, different outcomes?European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Differences in simulated doctor and patient medical decision making: a construal level perspective.PloS one · 2013Trial
- Conceptualizing surgical ageism to address age-based discrimination.Updates in surgery · 2026Review
- Beyond the algorithm: reframing biomarker-guided antibiotic stewardship with behavioural insights.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2026Article
- Is it ethically permissible for GPs to promote non-directed altruistic kidney donation to healthy adults?Journal of medical ethics · 2026Article
- Exploration of parents' and healthcare providers' perceptions on human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) and willingness to use HMO-enriched formula: a baseline mixed-methods study from the State of Qatar.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Effects of information framing cues and age on the comprehension of personal health records for self-care behaviors: an eye-tracking study.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2025Article
- Numerate people are less likely to be biased by regular science reporting: the critical roles of scientific reasoning and causal misunderstanding.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- The Challenges for EU User Testing Policies for Patient Information Leaflets.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- Early Shared Decision-Making for Older Adults with Traumatic Brain Injury: Using Time-Limited Trials and Understanding Their Limitations.Neurocritical care · 2023Article
- Bridging the ICT Revolution and Communication Inequality: Lessons for Cancer Survivors.Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP · 2023Article
- Article
- Attitudes among Parents towards Return of Disease-Related Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS) for Their Children.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Exploring the Use of "Nudges" to Improve HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted Infection Testing Among Men Who Have Sex with Men.Archives of sexual behavior · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPatients must be informed about risks before any treatment can be implemented. Yet serious problems in communicating these risks occur because of framing effects.
objectiveTo investigate the effects of different information frames when communicating health risks to people with high and low numeracy and determine whether these effects can be countered or eliminated by using different types of visual displays (i.e., icon arrays, horizontal bars, vertical bars, or pies).
designExperiment on probabilistic, nationally representative US (n = 492) and German (n = 495) samples, conducted in summer 2008. OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants' risk perceptions of the medical risk expressed in positive (i.e., chances of surviving after surgery) and negative (i.e., chances of dying after surgery) terms. KEY
resultsAlthough low-numeracy people are more susceptible to framing than those with high numeracy, use of visual aids is an effective method to eliminate its effects. However, not all visual aids were equally effective: pie charts and vertical and horizontal bars almost completely removed the effect of framing. Icon arrays, however, led to a smaller decrease in the framing effect.
conclusionsDifficulties with understanding numerical information often do not reside in the mind, but in the representation of the problem.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.