Doctors' Understanding of Survival Statistics

Completed

• Conditions: Screening

• Registration Number: NCT00981019
• Lead Sponsor: Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Brief Summary

The probably most commonly used measure for expressing the pay-offs of early detection and treatment are survival rates. Yet, over time and groups this metric comes with several biases and thus, is not reliable for judging such benefits. Epidemiologists recommend using reduction of disease-specific mortality rates instead, which is unbiased. The purpose of the study is to investigate how primary care physicians understand and use different survival measures for determining the benefit of cancer screening tests.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2009-09-18
• Study First Submitted QC: 2009-09-21
• Study First Posted: 2009-09-22
• Study Start: 2009-12
• Primary Completion: 2009-12
• Study Completion: 2009-12
• Results First Submitted: 2011-05-20
• Status Verified: 2011-07
• Results First Submitted QC: 2011-07-20
• Last Update Submitted: 2011-07-20
• Results First Posted: 2011-08-15
• Last Update Posted: 2011-08-15

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 778

Inclusion Criteria

• primary care physicians (internal, general, and family medicine physicians)

Exclusion Criteria

• all other types of physicians

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Number of Physicians (=Participants) Recommending the Screening	25 minutes (mean duration of the survey)	The aim of the study was to learn how different medical cancer screening statistics would influence doctors' recommendation behavior and their effectiveness judgments of screening tests. For that reason the online survey study presented physicians with four different medical statistics (e.g., 5-year survival) within four successive scenarios and asked after each scenario whether they would recommend the screening to a (hypothetical) patient given the data. Options to answer are: Definitely yes, Probably yes, Probably no, Definitely no, Can't decide.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Number of Physicians (= Participants) Assuming a Benefit of Screening	25 minutes (mean duration of the survey)	Physicians are faced with four different medical statistics about the effect of screening (e.g., 5-year survival) within four successive scenarios and after each scenario asked whether they assume the screening to be beneficial given the statistical information. Options to answer are: yes, no, can't decide. If yes, then participants are further asked to describe this benefit by the following categories: Very large, large, moderate, small, very small.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Max Planck Institute for Human Development; 🇩🇪 Berlin, Germany