Doctors' Understanding of Survival Statistics

Screening Clinical Trial

— MPIB  

Official title:

Study of Primary Care Physicians' Understanding and Use of Different Survival Measures

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT00981019
• Other study ID #: MPIB-01-SM
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: September 18, 2009
• Last updated: July 20, 2011
• Start date: December 2009
• Est. completion date: December 2009

Study information

• Verified date: July 2011
• Source: Max Planck Institute for Human Development
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Germany: Ethics Commission
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

The probably most commonly used measure for expressing the pay-offs of early detection and treatment are survival rates. Yet, over time and groups this metric comes with several biases and thus, is not reliable for judging such benefits. Epidemiologists recommend using reduction of disease-specific mortality rates instead, which is unbiased. The purpose of the study is to investigate how primary care physicians understand and use different survival measures for determining the benefit of cancer screening tests.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 778
• Est. completion date: December 2009
• Est. primary completion date: December 2009
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 30 Years to 65 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• primary care physicians (internal, general, and family medicine physicians)

Exclusion Criteria:

• all other types of physicians

Study Design

Observational Model: Ecologic or Community, Time Perspective: Prospective

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Screening

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Germany	Max Planck Institute for Human Development	Berlin

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Max Planck Institute for Human Development	Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Germany, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Number of Physicians (=Participants) Recommending the Screening	The aim of the study was to learn how different medical cancer screening statistics would influence doctors' recommendation behavior and their effectiveness judgments of screening tests. For that reason the online survey study presented physicians with four different medical statistics (e.g., 5-year survival) within four successive scenarios and asked after each scenario whether they would recommend the screening to a (hypothetical) patient given the data. Options to answer are: Definitely yes, Probably yes, Probably no, Definitely no, Can't decide.	25 minutes (mean duration of the survey)	No
Secondary	Number of Physicians (= Participants) Assuming a Benefit of Screening	Physicians are faced with four different medical statistics about the effect of screening (e.g., 5-year survival) within four successive scenarios and after each scenario asked whether they assume the screening to be beneficial given the statistical information. Options to answer are: yes, no, can't decide. If yes, then participants are further asked to describe this benefit by the following categories: Very large, large, moderate, small, very small.	25 minutes (mean duration of the survey)	No

External Links

•   Principal investigator's webpage