Health numeracy skills of medical students:cross-sectional and controlled before-and-after study

Abstract

BackgroundAlthough numeracy, defined as understanding and handling numbers, is an important skill for the medical profession, it is not clear whether it changes during graduate medical education and whether it can be improved by specific interventions. The objective of this study was to assess objective and subjective numeracy levels at different stages of medical education and explore whether a research methodology/statistics course improves numeracy levels in a longer period.MethodsWe performed cross-sectional and controlled before-and-after studies. First-year sociology students and first- to sixth-year medical students from the in the cross sectional study and two groups of first-year medical students in a controlled before-and-after study. The intervention was a course on biostatistics and research methodology using blended approach. Numeracy was measured using Subjective Numeracy Scale (Cronbach α = 0.70) and Numeracy Understanding in Medicine instrument (Cronbach α = 0.75).ResultsWhereas first-year medical students did not differ from first-year sociology students in objective numeracy, medicine students had higher results on subjective numeracy. Students from higher years of medical school had generally higher subjective and objective numeracy scores. In the controlled before-and-after study, the intervention group improved more in subjective numeracy (median difference on a 0–8 scale = 0.5, 95% CI 0.3 to 0.7 vs − 0.4, 95% CI − 0.4 to − 0.1, P < 0.001) but not in objective numeracy.ConclusionsAlthough the numeracy levels at the beginning of the medical school are within the range of non-medical population, both objective and subjective numeracy improve during the higher years of medical school. Curriculum during medical school may help in numeracy increase, while research methodology training may help to increase subjective but not objective numeracy skills.

An Evaluation of Health Numeracy among Radiation Therapists and Dosimetrists

“…Although the optimum NUMi score for ASRT members is unknown, given the highly quantitative nature of their work, one might expect our cohort to have numeracy skills at least as high as a non-medical group such as college freshman; roughly 1/6 of our study group scored at or below the average score (NUMi of 15) in a group of first-year university sociology students (22). In the subset analysis of NUMi questions pertaining to radiation dose unit (cGy versus Gy), respondents performed better with the unit cGy (mean score 2.94, score range 2-3) versus Gy (mean score 2.91, score range 0-3), (p=0.011).…”

“…Mean NUMi score for the general population with some college education is 11.3, and when educational levels increase to at least 4 years of college, the mean score increases to 16.4(20). NUMi scores increase with progression through medical student education, from 17.0 upon entry to 19.0 upon completion (22). Those with high levels of (non medical) education do not score as well as their medical colleagues, and those in later years of medical education score higher than their junior colleagues (14).…”

“…For reference, the average NUMi score of the general population is 13.2(20); those with no college education scored 9.8, those with some college education scored 11.3, and those with four years or more of college scored 16.3 (20). Medical Students in their first year of a six year hybrid medical school/university program scored 17.0, and those in their final year scored 19.0 (22).…”

General practitioners’ risk literacy and real-world prescribing of potentially hazardous drugs: a cross-sectional study

“…Our findings have significant implications for policy and practice. In light of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of brief and low-cost lessons in enhancing medical risk literacy,29–31 we advocate for efforts to incorporate instruction on understanding evidence, particularly health statistics, into medical training and continuing medical education. These easily implementable interventions have the potential to mitigate unnecessary prescribing.…”

How editors can help authors write better papers: Beyond journals and articles

“…36 In any case, we are strongly convinced that the 'delayed gains and satisfaction' which our students experienced is worth all our effort, as well as disappointments. 14 To make the long story short, we continue with all our models of science teaching, 37 widening it to issues of research integrity. 38 An especially ambitious project is the establishment of ST-OPEN overlay journal (http://st-open.unist.hr/) at the University of Split, Croatia, which aims to transform students' graduation theses into research articles in English journal.…”