ERA-EDTA Registry, Department of Medical Informatics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Nephrol Dial Transplant. 2017 Apr 1;32(suppl_2):ii13-ii18. doi: 10.1093/ndt/gfw465.
For the presentation of risk, both relative and absolute measures can be used. The relative risk is most often used, especially in studies showing the effects of a treatment. Relative risks have the appealing feature of summarizing two numbers (the risk in one group and the risk in the other) into one. However, this feature also represents their major weakness, that the underlying absolute risks are concealed and readers tend to overestimate the effect when it is presented in relative terms. In many situations, the absolute risk gives a better representation of the actual situation and also from the patient's point of view absolute risks often give more relevant information. In this article, we explain the concepts of both relative and absolute risk measures. Using examples from nephrology literature we illustrate that unless ratio measures are reported with the underlying absolute risks, readers cannot judge the clinical relevance of the effect. We therefore recommend to report both the relative risk and the absolute risk with their 95% confidence intervals, as together they provide a complete picture of the effect and its implications.
对于风险的呈现，可以使用相对和绝对度量。相对风险最常被使用，尤其是在显示治疗效果的研究中。相对风险具有将两个数字（一组中的风险和另一组中的风险）总结为一个数字的吸引人的特点。然而，这个特点也代表了它们的主要弱点，即潜在的绝对风险被隐藏了，读者往往会高估以相对术语呈现的效果。在许多情况下，绝对风险更能代表实际情况，而且从患者的角度来看，绝对风险通常提供更相关的信息。在本文中，我们解释了相对和绝对风险度量的概念。使用肾脏病学文献中的示例，我们说明除非报告了比值测量值和潜在的绝对风险，否则读者无法判断效果的临床相关性。因此，我们建议同时报告相对风险和绝对风险及其 95％置信区间，因为它们共同提供了对效果及其影响的完整描述。
