Communicating tailored risk information of cancer treatment side effects: Only words or also numbers?

Ruben D VromansSteffen C PauwsNadine BolLonneke V van de Poll-FranseEmiel J Krahmer

Published in: BMC medical informatics and decision making (2020)

Considering current interest in the use of personalized decision aids for improving shared decision-making in oncology, it is important that clinicians consider how tailored risks of treatment side effects should be communicated to patients. We recommend both clinicians who communicate probability information during consultations, and decision aid developers, that verbal descriptors of tailored risks should be supported by numerical estimates of risks levels, to avoid overestimation of risks.

Keyphrases

human health
palliative care
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ejection fraction
newly diagnosed
risk assessment
prognostic factors
decision making
working memory
peritoneal dialysis
climate change
primary care
patient reported outcomes
social media
general practice