title: Effects of presenting risk information in different formats to cardiologists. A Latin American survey.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Previous publications demonstrated that the presentation of treatment benefits in terms of relative risk reduction (RRR) rather than in terms of absolute risk reduction (ARR) or number of patients to treat (NNT) might favor the perception of outcome effectiveness. The objective was to perform a cognitive evaluation to assess how the manner in which risks and benefits of screening methods and treatments are presented can affect medical care decision-taking in a sample of cardiologists.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four-hundred and six Latin American cardiologists answered a questionnaire reporting the results of clinical trials presented as RRR, ARR or NNT, associated or not to biased graphs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cardiologists' decision-taking was different when comparing treatment benefits presented as RRR (62.2%) vs. ARR (40.4%) (p=0.000000), and as RRR vs. NNT (44.4%) (p=0.000000). However, their decision-taking was similar when information was presented as NNT or ARR (p=0.073). The inclusion of biased graphs was misinterpreted as an actual data difference (RRR: 61.6% vs. ARR: 14.0%, p=0.000000).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrated that Latin American cardiologists could misinterpret statistical data when information of clinical trials is presented in terms of RRR. We emphasize the need to enhance cardiologists' training in quantitative techniques, to improve medical care decision-making.
authors.affiliation: Sociedad Interamericana de Cardiología, México, D.F., Mexico; Bioestadística, Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Austral, Argentina. Electronic address: raborracci@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Raúl A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Borracci
authors.affiliation: Sociedad Interamericana de Cardiología, México, D.F., Mexico.
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Piñeiro
authors.affiliation: Bioestadística, Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Austral, Argentina; Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Ciencias Empresariales y Sociales (UCES), Argentina.
authors.forename: Eduardo B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Arribalzaga
mesh_terms: D002309:Cardiology; D000066491:Clinical Decision-Making; D007843:Latin America; D061366:Numbers Needed To Treat; D011643:Publishing; D012306:Risk; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: América Latina; Argentina; Bioestadística; Biostatistics; Cardiology; Cardiología; Decision-taking; Latin America; Riesgos; Risks; Toma de decisión