Trial reportBMC medical education2025
Risk expression using likelihood ratios and natural frequencies in Bayesian inference tasks-a preregistered randomized-controlled crossover trial.
Trial report in BMC medical education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo make reasonable future medical decisions, medical students need to be sufficiently educated to interpret diagnostic tests. Natural frequencies are considered the gold standard for understanding single diagnostic test results. However, they may be less suitable in situations involving sequential diagnostic testing. We test whether odds and likelihood ratios (odds/LR) may serve as a viable alternative in these situations.
methodsIn our preregistered randomized-controlled crossover trial, we recruited 167 medical students and 162 psychology students. The proportion of correctly calculated positive predictive values of a single (PPV) and two sequential diagnostic tests (sPPV) was the primary, the subjective comprehensibility of the information the secondary outcome.
resultsThe proportion of correct PPVs was significantly higher in the natural frequency (36.2%) compared to the odds/LR format (21.6%), OR 2.41. Conversely, the proportion of correct sPPVs was significantly higher in the odds/LR (10.6%) compared to the natural frequency format (4.9%), OR 2.73. Participants indicated a higher subjective comprehension of test statistics phrased as natural frequencies (Mdn = 19) than as odds/LR (Mdn = -15), r = .61.
conclusionTeaching Odds/LR next to natural frequencies potentially improves medical students' understanding of PPV and may enhance their ability to make future diagnostic decisions.
trial registrationhttps://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/F3297 .
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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.