Communicating risk: Patients often have complex understanding of risk

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7428.1403-b

BMJ 2003;327:1403 (13 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7428.1403-b

Letter

Communicating risk

Patients often have complex understanding of risk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Why do doctors make such heavy weather of risk?The discussion of risk assessment and communication still slipsinto patronising patients and oversimplifying issues.¹ We thinkthat individual decisions are almost always reasoned and thatpatients often have more complex understanding of risk thantheir doctors.

There are two dimensions to understanding health risks froma citizen's perspective: their estimation of the probabilityand impact of any action or inaction, and their position ona spectrum from conformist to dissenting attitude.

Driving children to school does expose them to the risk of roadcrashes, but the probability of this happening is decreasingas the volume of traffic rises and the rate of serious crashesfalls. The impact of accidents can be reduced by individualaction (careful driving), technological innovation (safer cars),and social measures (traffic calming).

Similarly, the possibility of a connection between the vaccinefor measles, mumps, . . . [Full text of this article]

Steve Iliffe, reader in general practice

Royal Free and University College London Medical School, London NW3 2PF s.iliffe@pcps.ucl.ac.uk

Jill Manthorpe, professor of social work

Social Care Workforce Research Unit, Franklin Wilkin Building, King's College, London SE1

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us Add to Digg

Digg

StumbleUpon Add to Technorati

Technorati What's this?

Relevant Article

Communication and miscommunication of risk: understanding UK parents' attitudes to combined MMR vaccination: Paul Bellaby
BMJ 2003 327: 725-728. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]