'Risk' exposure
The word pops up often in ads and stories about health, but misunderstanding what it really means can cause problems
Excerpt from article:
STUDY ON PERCEPTION OF RISKS BY DOCTORS AND PATIENTS
A new drug for a viral disease has just come onto the market. It has severe side effects, but in clinical trials, it decreased the risk of dying from the disease by 33 percent, or one-third. Sounds impressive, right?
Now let’s look at the data a different way. Out of all patients who were given the new drug, 96 percent survived and 4 percent died. For those on the old drug, 94 percent survived and 6 percent died. So, the mortality rate decreased by one-third - from 6 percent to 4 percent.
Is the new drug better than the old one? And by how much? In a recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, doctors and patients were presented with these two scenarios. Both populations were more likely to rate the new drug as very effective when they were only presented with the data showing a decrease in mortality by one-third - the relative risk reduction.
If they also saw that death rates fell from 6 percent to 4 percent - the absolute risk reduction - patients and doctors were far less likely to consider the drug as effective as before.
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