Published 7 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3630
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3630

Letters

BMJ pico

Understanding what you read

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

Groves and Schroter say that BMJ pico articles will be accompanied by a table showing ratio measures (relative risk, odds ratio).¹ However, evidence consistently shows that even experienced professionals may fail to interpret correctly data reported as ratio measures,² which may in turn affect decision making and communication with patients.³ Better ways of conveying information are being developed,^{4 5} and the BMJ should not miss the opportunity to apply them if the pico articles are to fulfil their potential.

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3630

¹ Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil CF47 9DT

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Competing interests: None declared.

1. Groves T, Schroter S. BMJ pico for original research in the print BMJ. BMJ 2009;339:b3168. (6 August.)[Free Full Text]
2. Bramwell R, West H, Salmon P. Health professionals’ and service users’ interpretation of screening test results: experimental study. BMJ 2006;331:284.
3. Steiner JF. The language of population and the language of individuals. Ann Intern Med 1999;130:618.[Free Full Text]
4. Gigerenzer G, Edwards A. Simple tools for understanding risk: from innumeracy to insight. BMJ 2003;327:741.[Free Full Text]
5. Gigerenzer G, Gaissmaier W, Kurz-milcke E, Schwartz LM, Woloshin S. Helping doctors and patients to make sense of health statistics. Psych Science in the Public Interest 2008;8:53.

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