Patients' Expectations of Screening and Preventive Treatments

Ben Hudson; Abby Zarifeh; Lorraine Young; J. Elisabeth Wells

doi:10.1370/afm.1407

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Patients' unrealistic expections of prevention and screening
Felicity A Goodyear-Smith

Published on: 15 November 2012

Published on: (15 November 2012)
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Patients' unrealistic expections of prevention and screening
Felicity A Goodyear-Smith, Professor
Hudson et al's study (Patients' Expectations of Screening and Preventive Treatments, Annals of Family Medicine, Nov/Dec 2012) highlights the important point that for many patients, a screening test may be viewed as a means to rule in or out whether they have a disease or a condition. Mass screening is for populations, but the nuances relating to false positives and false negatives, and benefits versus harms of screening or...
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Hudson et al's study (Patients' Expectations of Screening and Preventive Treatments, Annals of Family Medicine, Nov/Dec 2012) highlights the important point that for many patients, a screening test may be viewed as a means to rule in or out whether they have a disease or a condition. Mass screening is for populations, but the nuances relating to false positives and false negatives, and benefits versus harms of screening or not screening, may be lost on individuals undergoing the process. Not only may patients over-estimate the benefits obtained from screening, they may also not fully appreciate the potential risks of over-investigation and unnecessary intervention. Similarly a preventive treatment may reduce the overall morbidity and mortality of a population from a condition, but a particular individual may not realize that there is a chance that they would never develop the condition, or that they may succumb despite the medication.
This study adds to the weight of research indicating that informing patients about the potential benefits and harms of taking a screening test or a preventive medication is a complex process. To fully understand, patients may need to be given information in different ways, including pictorial as well as numerical presentation. Physicians need to clearly explain that preventive medications and screening tests may reduce the odds of a patient suffering morbidity or mortality from the condition under consideration, but the risk is not eliminated, and for some there are potential harms from embarking on this route.
Competing interests: None declared
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Competing Interests: None declared.