Risk communication is crucial part of doctor-patient interaction. This is also true for field of orthopaedics and traumatology. As we move towards shared decision making in our field, research about different methods for risk communication is very relevant.
Waters et al. investigated different methods for risk communication in the study “Risk Ladder, Table, or Bulleted List? Identifying Formats That Effectively Communicate Personalized Risk and Risk Reduction Information for Multiple Diseases“.
Their conclusion was as follows:
Risk ladders can communicate the gist meaning of multiple pieces of risk information to individuals from many sociodemographic backgrounds and with varying levels of facility with numbers and graphs.
This study has direct implication for our practice.