Communicating tailored risk information of cancer treatment side effects: Only words or also numbers?

Table 5 Participants’ mean scores (with standard deviations within parentheses) on the primary and secondary outcome measures as a function of tailoring (tailored vs. generic risks) and message format (verbal-only vs. verbal and numerical combined) for high probability rate risks

Measures	Verbal-only “very common”			Verbal and numerical combined “very common, 40 out of 100”
Measures	Generic	Tailored	Total	Generic	Tailored	Total
Primary measures
Estimation of probability (in %)	71.0 (21.1)	78.9 (18.1)^a**	74.9 (19.1)	53.5 (22.3)	54.0 (21.9)	53.7 (22.1)^c***
Accuracy of estimation of probability (in %)	32.1 (19.5)	39.6 (16.7) ^a***	35.8 (18.1)	17.4 (19.3)	17.9 (18.7)	17.7 (19.0)^c***
Perceived likelihood of occurrence	4.73 (1.07)	5.02 (0.98)	4.87 (1.03)	4.23 (1.22)	4.28 (1.21)	4.26 (1.22)^c***
Secondary measures
Perceived personal relevance	3.16 (0.74)	3.47 (0.80) ^a***	3.39 (0.77)	3.34 (0.89)	3.47 (0.86) ^b***	3.40 (0.88)
Perceived uncertainty	2.55 (1.30)	2.41 (1.37)^a*	2.48 (1.34)	2.73 (1.20)	2.91 (1.36)	2.82 (1.28)

^aMean differs significantly compared to generic risk within verbal-only risk condition
^bMean differs significantly compared to generic risk within verbal and numerical combined condition
^cMean differs significantly compared to total verbal-only risk; *p < .01, **p = .001, ***p < .001

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