Trial reportWorld journal of surgery2016
A Randomised Assessment of Trainee Doctors' Understanding and Interpretation of Diagnostic Test Results.
Trial report in World journal of surgery, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Risk expression using likelihood ratios and natural frequencies in Bayesian inference tasks-a preregistered randomized-controlled crossover trial.BMC medical education · 2025Trial
- Family physicians overestimate diagnosis probabilities regardless of the test results.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionDoctors are unfamiliar with diagnostic accuracy parameters despite routine clinical use of diagnostic tests to estimate disease probability.
methodsTrainee doctors completed a questionnaire exploring their understanding of diagnostic accuracy parameters; ability to calculate post-test probability of a common surgical condition (appendicitis) and their perceptions on training in this area. To determine whether the method of information provision altered interpretation, trainees were randomised to receive diagnostic test information in three ways: positive test only; positive test with specificity and sensitivity; positive test with positive likelihood ratio in layman terms.
results326 candidates were recruited across 30 training sessions. Trainees scored a median of three out of seven in questions concerning knowledge of diagnostic accuracy parameters. This was affected neither by training level (P = 0.737) nor by experience in acute general surgery (P = 0.738). 30 (11.8%) candidates correctly estimated post-test probability; with 86.6% overestimating this value. Neither level of training (P = 0.180) nor experience (P = 0.242) influenced the accuracy of the estimate. Provision of the ultrasound scan results in different ways was not associated with likelihood of a correct response (P = 0.857).
conclusionThis study highlights the deficiencies in trainee doctors' understanding and application of diagnostic tests results. Most trainees over-estimated disease probability, increasing the risk of unnecessary intervention and treatment.
Indexed as
Identifiers
26306891What 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.