ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2018
Presenting comparative study PRO results to clinicians and researchers: beyond the eye of the beholder.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled 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
- Information visualizations of symptom information for patients and providers: a systematic review.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2019Pooled it
- Evaluation of a new design solution for the visualisation of a risk-adjusted hospital performance comparison: results of an end user-centred mixed methods study.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2026Article
- Best practices and pragmatic approaches for patient-reported outcomes and quality of life measures in cancer clinical trials.Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs · 2025Article
- A powerful partnership: researchers and patients working together to develop a patient-facing summary of clinical trial outcome data.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2024Article
- Statistical methods and data visualisation of patient-reported outcomes in early phase dose-finding oncology trials: a methodological review.EClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- A toolbox of different approaches to analyze and present PRO-CTCAE data in oncology studies.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2023Article
- Article
- Overview of Sankey flow diagrams: Focusing on symptom trajectories in older adults with advanced cancer.Journal of geriatric oncology · 2022Article
- The PROTEUS-Trials Consortium: Optimizing the use of patient-reported outcomes in clinical trials.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2022Article
- Review
- Feedback of patient-reported outcomes to healthcare professionals for comparing health service performance: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2020Article
- Observational
- In proportion: approaches for displaying patient-reported outcome research study results as percentages responding to treatment.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2019Article
- Making a picture worth a thousand numbers: recommendations for graphically displaying patient-reported outcomes data.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2019Article
- From the Child's Word to Clinical Intervention: Novel, New, and Innovative Approaches to Symptoms in Pediatric Palliative Care.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposePatient-reported outcome (PRO) results from clinical trials can inform clinical care, but PRO interpretation is challenging. We evaluated the interpretation accuracy and perceived clarity of various strategies for displaying clinical trial PRO findings.
methodsWe conducted an e-survey of oncology clinicians and PRO researchers (supplemented by one-on-one clinician interviews) that randomized respondents to view one of the three line-graph formats (average scores over time for two treatments on four domains): (1) higher scores consistently indicating "better" patient status; (2) higher scores indicating "more" of what was being measured (better for function, worse for symptoms); or (3) normed scores. Two formats displayed proportions changed (pie/bar charts). Multivariate modeling was used to analyze interpretation accuracy and clarity ratings.
resultsTwo hundred and thirty-three clinicians and 248 researchers responded; ten clinicians were interviewed. Line graphs with "better" directionality were more likely to be interpreted accurately than "normed" line graphs (OR 1.55; 95% CI 1.01-2.38; p = 0.04). No significant differences were found between "better" and "more" formats. "Better" formatted graphs were also more likely to be rated "very clear" versus "normed" formatted graphs (OR 1.91; 95% CI 1.44-2.54; p < 0.001). For proportions changed, respondents were less likely to make an interpretation error with pie versus bar charts (OR 0.35; 95% CI 0.2-0.6; p < 0.001); clarity ratings did not differ between formats. Qualitative findings informed the interpretation of the survey findings.
conclusionsGraphic formats for presenting PRO data differ in how accurately they are interpreted and how clear they are perceived to be. These findings will inform the development of best practices for optimally reporting PRO findings.
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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.