Pensare in numeri e usare i numeri per comunicare il rischio

Abstract

Bad presentation of the risks associated with a medical intervention can lead to patients making poor decisions on treatment. Some ways in communicating clinical risk are particularly confusing, expecially when physicians use conditional probabilities (such as sensitivity and specificity), and relative risks. However, the inability to understand statistical information is not a mental deficiency of doctors or patients but is largely due to the poor presentation of the information. This articles gives some advices to improve an adequate communication of statistical information, so that patients can make well informed decisions.