West Lauren M, Brase Gary L
Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA.
PEC Innov. 2023 Aug 8;3:100197. doi: 10.1016/j.pecinn.2023.100197. eCollection 2023 Dec 15.
Health professionals must communicate prenatal screening test results effectively to patients, but these tests involve very low prevalence and high false positive risks; a situation known to be difficult for people to understand.
The present experiments evaluated the effectiveness of presenting prenatal screening test results for Trisomy 21, Trisomy 13, or DiGeorge Syndrome, using either naturally sampled frequencies or standard percentages. Participants were given a task of interpreting the posterior probability of an embryo having the condition.
People were significantly better with naturally sampled frequencies. Numerical literacy and visuospatial ability significantly accounted for individual differences in performance within conditions. Participants nevertheless did not differ in ratings of how useful the different presentation formats were, suggesting a lack of awareness of how format influenced understanding. These results held regardless of whether the respondents were undergraduates (Experiment 1) or members of the general population recruited online (Experiment 2).
Using naturally sampled frequencies improves patient understanding of prenatal screening tests results, with low cost of implementation.
Using realistic prenatal screening test results, these results show how to improve patient counseling via the use of naturally sampled frequencies.
医疗专业人员必须有效地向患者传达产前筛查测试结果，但这些测试涉及的疾病患病率极低且假阳性风险高，这种情况众所周知难以让人理解。
本实验评估了使用自然抽样频率或标准百分比呈现21三体、13三体或迪格奥尔格综合征产前筛查测试结果的有效性。参与者被给予一项解释胚胎患该病后验概率的任务。
人们对自然抽样频率的理解明显更好。数字素养和视觉空间能力在很大程度上解释了不同条件下个体表现的差异。然而，参与者对不同呈现形式有用性的评分没有差异，这表明他们没有意识到形式对理解的影响。无论受访者是本科生（实验1）还是在线招募的普通人群成员（实验2），这些结果都成立。
使用自然抽样频率可提高患者对产前筛查测试结果的理解，且实施成本低。
通过使用实际的产前筛查测试结果，这些结果展示了如何通过使用自然抽样频率来改善患者咨询。
