title: Understanding by the general public of newspaper reports on publicly reported cancer survival in Japan: a randomized controlled trial.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study was aimed to examine how well readers of newspapers understand cancer survival rate data, and the effect of this understanding on their behavioral intent.
  
  
  METHODS
  We recruited 1950 persons who were 20 years old or older registered with a market research company. Participants were randomly divided into 10 groups; 9 were assigned one of nine newspaper articles, and the remaining group was assigned the excerpt of the official Association of Clinical Cancer Centers web pages. The primary outcome was the proportion of respondents with 'sufficient understanding', who gave 70% or more correct answers on a 10-item knowledge question.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The proportion of participants with sufficient understanding varied across the groups (range: 0.8-22.1%, overall, P<0.001). Only around 15% of participants answered that they would consider other hospitals in a scenario where the only hospital in the participants' area had a 5-year survival of 5% or less, and answers did not significantly vary between groups (range: 11.1-21.0%, overall P=0.77).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The level of understanding of cancer survival rate varied by variation in media reporting. However, the effect of behavioral intent on hospital choice did not differ between articles.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  UMIN CTR UMIN000004885.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health/Health Policy, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo f-naka@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Fumiaki
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.affiliation: Division of Cancer Health Services Research, Center for Cancer Control and Information Services, The National Cancer Center, Tokyo.
authors.forename: Takahiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Higashi
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Gunma Prefectural Cancer Center, Gunma.
authors.forename: Nobuhiro
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Saruki
authors.affiliation: Department of Healthcare Epidemiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto.
authors.forename: Shunichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fukuhara
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomotaka
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sobue
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D009524:Newspapers as Topic; D015996:Survival Rate
keywords: communications media; health care; hospital quality of health care/statistics and numerical data; oncology service; quality assurance