Abstract ES9-2: Communicating risk information: talking by numbers

Abstract

Abstract Health literacy and numeracy skills amongst the general population are frequently poor, which impedes their understanding of important health information. Even those patients fully conversant with percentages and ratios can suffer with math anxiety when involved in stressful environments, making it difficult to process complex information effectively. This may be especially true for women with breast cancer having to decide about adjuvant treatments after receiving risk of recurrence genomic expression profiling (GEP) test results. Explaining risk of recurrence clearly can be a challenge for the clinician and nurse too. They need a wide repertoire of communication skills to accommodate the needs of patients with different social and educational backgrounds. Some health care professionals (HCPs) use analogies to explain risk, which may not always be of benefit. In order to help HCPs discuss GEP test results we developed and evaluated an educational program called TARGET (Talking About Risk in the Context of GEnomic Tests). As part of the evaluation we measured participants’ own numeracy skills and intolerance to uncertainty. In this talk the audience will be invited to participate in various numeracy exercises, and be able to compare their results with UK data from 56 breast cancer clinicians and 78 specialist breast care nurses. The presentation will conclude with suggestions of different ways to communicate risk. Citation Format: V Jenkins. Communicating risk information: talking by numbers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2019 Dec 10-14; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(4 Suppl):Abstract nr ES9-2.