Peters Gabrielle W, Kelly Jacqueline R, Beckta Jason M, White Marney, Marks Lawrence B, Ford Eric, Evans Suzanne B
Therapeutic Radiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
School of Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
Adv Radiat Oncol. 2020 Nov 3;6(3):100609. doi: 10.1016/j.adro.2020.10.022. eCollection 2021 May-Jun.
Medical errors in radiation oncology sometimes involve tasks reliant on practitioners' grasp of numeracy. Numeracy has been shown to be suboptimal across various health care professionals. Herein, we assess health numeracy among American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) members.
The Numeracy Understanding for Medicine instrument (NUMi), an instrument to measure numeracy in the general population, was adapted to oncology for this study and distributed to ASRT members (n = 14,228) in 2017. Per NUMi scoring, health numeracy scores were categorized as low (0-7), low average (8-12), high average (13-17), or high (18-20). The impact of cGy versus Gy on numeracy performance was investigated. Spearman's rho and a Wilcox-Mann-Whitney test were used for comparisons between the different groups.
A total of 662 eligible participants completed the instrument and identified as radiation oncology professionals. In the cGy and Gy NUMi scores, approximately 2% of respondents scored low-average, approximately 40% scored high-average, and approximately 58% scored high, with a median score of 18.0. Although the optimum NUMi score for ASRT members is unknown, one might expect our cohort to have numeracy skills at least as high as college freshmen. Roughly one-sixth of our study group scored at or below the average score of college freshmen (NUMi = 15). In the subset analysis of NUMi questions pertaining to radiation dose unit (cGy vs Gy), respondents performed better with cGy (mean score: 2.94; range, 2-3) versus Gy (mean: 2.91; range, 0-3; = .011).
In this study of limited sample size, overall numeracy is quite good compared with the general population. However, the range of scores is wide, and some respondents have lower scores that may be concerning, suggesting that numeracy may be an issue that requires improvement for a subset of the studied cohort. Performance was superior with the unit cGy; thus, the adoption of cGy as the standard unit is reasonable.
放射肿瘤学中的医疗差错有时涉及依赖从业者算术能力的任务。已有研究表明，各类医疗保健专业人员的算术能力都不太理想。在此，我们评估美国放射技师协会（ASRT）成员的健康算术能力。
用于测量普通人群算术能力的医学算术理解工具（NUMi）在本研究中被改编用于肿瘤学领域，并于2017年分发给ASRT成员（n = 14228）。根据NUMi评分，健康算术能力得分被分为低（0 - 7）、低平均（8 - 12）、高平均（13 - 17）或高（18 - 20）。研究了厘戈瑞（cGy）与戈瑞（Gy）对算术能力表现的影响。使用斯皮尔曼等级相关系数和威尔科克森 - 曼 - 惠特尼检验对不同组进行比较。
共有662名符合条件的参与者完成了该工具测试并被确定为放射肿瘤学专业人员。在cGy和Gy的NUMi得分中，约2%的受访者得分处于低平均水平，约40%得分处于高平均水平，约58%得分较高，中位数得分为18.0。虽然ASRT成员的最佳NUMi得分尚不清楚，但可以预期我们的队列至少具有与大学新生一样高的算术技能。我们研究组中约六分之一的人得分等于或低于大学新生的平均得分（NUMi = 15）。在与辐射剂量单位（cGy与Gy）相关的NUMi问题的子集分析中，受访者对cGy的表现更好（平均得分：2.94；范围，2 - 3），而对Gy的表现为（平均得分：2.91；范围，0 - 3；P = 0.011）。
在这项样本量有限的研究中，与普通人群相比，总体算术能力相当不错。然而，得分范围较宽，一些受访者得分较低，这可能令人担忧，表明算术能力可能是研究队列中一部分人需要改进的问题。使用cGy单位时表现更优；因此，采用cGy作为标准单位是合理的。
