Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pspi_8_2_article.pdf">pspi_8_2_article.pdf

SUMMARY

We show that information pamphlets,
Web sites, leaflets distributed to doctors by the pharmaceutical
industry, and even medical journals often report
evidence in nontransparent forms that suggest big benefits
of featured interventions and small harms. Without understanding
the numbers involved, the public is susceptible
to political and commercial manipulation of their anxieties
and hopes, which undermines the goals of informed consent
and shared decision making.