Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38631907›Full record

ArticleBMJ quality & safety2024

General practitioners' risk literacy and real-world prescribing of potentially hazardous drugs: a cross-sectional study.

Odette Wegwarth, Tammy C Hoffmann, Ben Goldacre, Claudia Spies, Helge A Giese

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMJ quality & safety, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
0.8field-weighted citation impact, top 26% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Communicating Time-to-Event Treatment Effects in Randomized Trials: A Randomized Experiment among General Practitioners.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2026
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.

Odette WegwarthHeisenberg Chair for Medical Risk Literacy & Evidence-Based Decisions, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Charite Mitte, Berlin, Germany odette.wegwarth@charite.de.ORCID 0000-0003-0885-2673
Tammy C HoffmannFaculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Ben GoldacreNuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-5127-4728
Claudia SpiesDepartment of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Campus Charité Mitte and Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-1062-0495
Helge A GieseHeisenberg Chair for Medical Risk Literacy & Evidence-Based Decisions, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Charite Mitte, Berlin, Germany.
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin · DEBond University · AUMax Planck Institute for Human Development · DEUniversity of Oxford · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundOveruse of medical care is a pervasive problem. Studies using hypothetical scenarios suggest that physicians' risk literacy influences medical decisions; real-world correlations, however, are lacking. We sought to determine the association between physicians' risk literacy and their real-world prescriptions of potentially hazardous drugs, accounting for conflicts of interest and perceptions of benefit-harm ratios in low-value prescribing scenarios. SETTING AND SAMPLE: Cross-sectional study-conducted online between June and October 2023 via field panels of Sermo (Hamburg, Germany)-with a convenience sample of 304 English general practitioners (GPs).

methodsGPs' survey responses on their treatment-related risk literacy, conflicts of interest and perceptions of the benefit-harm ratio in low-value prescribing scenarios were matched to their UK National Health Service records of prescribing volumes for antibiotics, opioids, gabapentin and benzodiazepines and analysed for differences.

results204 GPs (67.1%) worked in practices with ≥6 practising GPs and 226 (76.0%) reported 10-39 years of experience. Compared with GPs demonstrating low risk literacy, GPs with high literacy prescribed fewer opioids (mean (M CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The observed association between GPs with higher risk literacy and the prescription of fewer hazardous drugs suggests the importance of risk literacy in enhancing patient safety and quality of care.

Indexed as

General PractitionersPractice Patterns, Physicians'AdultConflict of InterestCross-Sectional StudiesFemaleHealth LiteracyHumansMaleMiddle AgedRisk AssessmentSurveys and QuestionnairesUnited KingdomDecision makingEvidence-based medicineHealthcare quality improvementMedical educationPatient safety

Identifiers

PMID38631907
PMCPMC11503163
OpenAlexW4394892333

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.