Trial reportMedical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making2015
The impact of numeracy on verbatim knowledge of the longitudinal risk for prostate cancer recurrence following radiation therapy.
Trial report in Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of different visual presentations on the comprehension of prognostic information: a systematic review.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2021Pooled it
- Communicating treatment risks and benefits to cancer patients: a systematic review of communication methods.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2020Pooled it
- Trial
- Serious and actionable risks, plus disclosure: Investigating an alternative approach for presenting risk information in prescription drug television advertisements.Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAP · 2018Trial
- A comprehension scale for central-line associated bloodstream infection: Results of a preliminary survey and factor analysis.PloS one · 2018Trial
- The Lure of Beauty: People Select Representations of Statistical Information Largely Based on Attractiveness, Not Comprehensibility.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision MakingTrial
- User Testing of the NCI's ASA24 Respondent Nutrition Report for Total Nutrient Intake From Foods, Beverages, and Dietary Supplements: A Qualitative Study.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2026Article
- Evaluation of prostate cancer pathology reports generated by ChatGPT to enhance patient comprehension.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Investigating the presentation of uncertainty in an icon array: A randomized trial.PEC innovation · 2022Article
- How People Understand Risk Matrices, and How Matrix Design Can Improve their Use: Findings from Randomized Controlled Studies.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2022Article
- Prediction of future risk of any and higher-grade prostate cancer based on the PLCO and SELECT trials.BMC urology · 2022Article
- Article
- Do Preferred Risk Formats Lead to Better Understanding? A Multicenter Controlled Trial on Communicating Familial Breast Cancer Risks Using Different Risk Formats.Patient preference and adherence · 2020Article
- The impact of doctor-patient communication on patients' perceptions of their risk of breast cancer recurrence.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2017Article
- Do Clinicians Understand Quality Metric Data? An Evaluation in a Twitter-Derived Sample.Journal of hospital medicine · 2017Article
- Radiosensitization by PARP Inhibition in DNA Repair Proficient and Deficient Tumor Cells: Proliferative Recovery in Senescent Cells.Radiation research · 2016Article
- Scope, Methods, and Overview Findings for the Making Numbers Meaningful Evidence Review of Communicating Probabilities in Health: A Systematic Review.MDM policy & practiceReview
- How Time-Trend Tasks Are Affected by Probability Format: A Making Numbers Meaningful Systematic Review.MDM policy & practiceReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objective. Given the long natural history of prostate cancer, we assessed differing graphical formats for imparting knowledge about the longitudinal risks of prostate cancer recurrence with or without 'hormone' or 'androgen deprivation' therapy.
methods. Male volunteers without a history of prostate cancer were randomized to 1 of 8 risk communication instruments that depicted the likelihood of prostate cancer returning or spreading over 1, 2, and 3 years. The tools differed in format (line, pie, bar, or pictograph) and whether the graph also included no numbers, 1 number (indicating the number of affected individuals), or 2 numbers (indicting both the number affected and the number unaffected). The main outcome variables evaluated were graphical preference and knowledge.
results. A total of 420 men were recruited; respondents were least familiar and experienced with pictographs (P < 0.0001), and only 10% preferred this particular format. Overall accuracy ranged from 79% to 92%, and when assessed across all graphical subtypes, the addition of numerical information did not improve verbatim knowledge (P = 0.1). Self-reported numeracy was a strong predictor of accuracy of responses (odds ratio [OR] = 2.6, P = 0.008), and the impact of high numeracy varied across graphical type, having a greater impact on line (OR = 5.1; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.6-16; P = 0.04) and pie charts (OR = 7.1; 95% CI = 2.6-19; P =0.01), without an impact on pictographs (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.1-1.7; P = 0.17) or bar charts (OR = 0.5; 95% CI = 0.1-1.8; P = 0.24).
conclusion. For longitudinal presentation of risk, baseline numeracy was strongly prognostic for outcome. However, the addition of numbers to risk graphs improved only the delivery of verbatim knowledge for subjects with lower numeracy. Although subjects reported the least familiarity with pictographs, they were one of the most effective means of transferring information regardless of numeracy.
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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.