title: Literature review of visual representation of the results of benefit-risk assessments of medicinal products.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The PROTECT Benefit-Risk group is dedicated to research in methods for continuous benefit-risk monitoring of medicines, including the presentation of the results, with a particular emphasis on graphical methods.
  
  
  METHODS
  A comprehensive review was performed to identify visuals used for medical risk and benefit-risk communication. The identified visual displays were grouped into visual types, and each visual type was appraised based on five criteria: intended audience, intended message, knowledge required to understand the visual, unintentional messages that may be derived from the visual and missing information that may be needed to understand the visual.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixty-six examples of visual formats were identified from the literature and classified into 14 visual types. We found that there is not one single visual format that is consistently superior to others for the communication of benefit-risk information. In addition, we found that most of the drawbacks found in the visual formats could be considered general to visual communication, although some appear more relevant to specific formats and should be considered when creating visuals for different audiences depending on the exact message to be communicated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have arrived at recommendations for the use of visual displays for benefit-risk communication. The recommendation refers to the creation of visuals. We outline four criteria to determine audience-visual compatibility and consider these to be a key task in creating any visual. Next we propose specific visual formats of interest, to be explored further for their ability to address nine different types of benefit-risk analysis information.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Christine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Hallgreen
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Shahrul
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mt-Isa
authors.affiliation: GlaxoSmithKline UK, Middlesex, UK.
authors.forename: Alfons
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lieftucht
authors.affiliation: Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
authors.forename: Lawrence D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.affiliation: Pfizer, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.affiliation: Amgen Limited, Uxbridge, UK.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Talbot
authors.affiliation: Bayer Pharma AG, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Asiimwe
authors.affiliation: Amgen Limited, Uxbridge, UK.
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Downey
authors.affiliation: European Medicines Agency, London, UK.
authors.forename: Georgy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Genov
authors.affiliation: AstraZeneca LP, Wilmington, DE, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hermann
authors.affiliation: Eli Lilly and Company, Lilly Corporate Center, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Noel
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: MerckSerono International SA, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Micaleff
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Ioanna
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tzoulaki
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ashby
mesh_terms: D016907:Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems / Q000295:instrumentation; D003142:Communication; D003626:Data Display; D003657:Decision Making; D017891:Pharmacoepidemiology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*
keywords: benefit-risk; communication; decision-making; medicines; pharmacoepidemiology; review; visual representation