1,721,009 research outputs found
What makes a tumor diagnosis a call to action? on the preference for action versus inaction
No full textBackground. Many studies have shown an omission bias, but when the context is cancer, people seem to prefer active treatments to watchful waiting. Objective. First, to investigate whether the preference for active treatment for cancer could depend on the associations attached to the inaction option, and second, to explore the kind of diagnosis that gives rise to the preference for action, by comparing scenarios differing in the status of the illness (already present v. could arise in the future), the kind of diagnosis (malign tumor, benign tumor, or nontumor), and the possible development of the tumor (growth v. degeneration). Design. Between-subjects design with 8 hypothetical scenarios. Participants. A total of 735 students participated in an Internet survey. Measurements. Choice between watchful waiting and surgery, perceived severity of the diagnosis. Results. Active treatment was preferred only when the scenario described watchful waiting as excluding surgery in the future. The critical aspect for participants' preference for active treatment was the malignancy of the tumor currently diagnosed. Perceived severity was also a significant predictor of treatment choice. Limitations. Inability to infer causation in the relationship between choice and perceived severity. Conclusions. Action is preferred to inaction when a malignant tumor is currently diagnosed and active treatments are not allowed in the future; under other conditions, participants prefer inaction (e.g., when active treatments are allowed in the future, or when the tumor is benign) or exhibit no preference (e.g., when it is not specified whether active treatments are allowed in the future)
What Makes a Tumor Diagnosis a Call to Action? On the Preference for Action versus Inaction
No full textBackground. Many studies have shown an omission bias, but when the context is cancer, people seem to prefer active treatments to watchful waiting. Objective. First, to investigate whether the preference for active treatment for cancer could depend on the associations attached to the inaction option, and second, to explore the kind of diagnosis that gives rise to the preference for action, by comparing scenarios differing in the status of the illness (already present v. could arise in the future), the kind of diagnosis (malign tumor, benign tumor, or nontumor), and the possible development of the tumor (growth v. degeneration). Design. Between-subjects design with 8 hypothetical scenarios. Participants. A total of 735 students participated in an Internet survey. Measurements. Choice between watchful waiting and surgery, perceived severity of the diagnosis. Results. Active treatment was preferred only when the scenario described watchful waiting as excluding surgery in the future. The critical aspect for participants’ preference for active treatment was the malignancy of the tumor currently diagnosed. Perceived severity was also a significant predictor of treatment choice. Limitations. Inability to infer causation in the relationship between choice and perceived severity. Conclusions. Action is preferred to inaction when a malignant tumor is currently diagnosed and active treatments are not allowed in the future; under other conditions, participants prefer inaction (e.g., when active treatments are allowed in the future, or when the tumor is benign) or exhibit no preference (e.g., when it is not specified whether active treatments are allowed in the future)
Integers are better: Adding decimals to risk estimates makes them less believable and harder to remember
No full textPurpose: To determine whether the number of decimal places in a personal health risk estimate influences the extent to which people believe and remember the estimate.
Methods: 3422 adults in a demographically diverse US-based online sample (mean age 50, 52% female, 74% white, 56% no college degree) were asked to imagine they were visiting an online risk calculator hosted by a prominent university’s medical school. We designed a mock calculator similar to existing calculators available online. The calculator asked a series of health questions relevant to kidney cancer and returned a hypothetical estimate of lifetime risk of kidney cancer. In this between-subjects experiment, participants were assigned one of seven risk estimates close to the average lifetime risk of kidney cancer in the US. Participants who were randomized to the no decimals condition received an estimate of 2%. Those in the one, two or three decimals conditions received an estimate of 2.1% or 1.9% (one decimal), 2.13% or 1.87% (two decimals), or 2.133% or 1.867% (three decimals). Participants were asked to indicate how believable they found the estimate to be on a six-point scale anchored by labels, “not at all,” and, “extremely.” Then, after completing a second, unrelated survey (median time for this task was 8 minutes), they were asked to recall to the best of their ability the kidney cancer lifetime risk estimate they had been given earlier.
Results: Risk estimates expressed as integers were judged as the most believable (F(3, 3384)=2.94, p=.03). Compared to estimates with decimal places, integer estimates were judged as highly believable (defined as the top two points of the six-point scale) by 7 to 10% more participants (Chi-squared(3)=17.82, p<.001). Recall was highest for integer estimates. Odds ratios for correct approximate recall (defined generously as being within 50% of the original estimate) were, for one decimal place, OR=0.65 (95% CI 0.49, 0.86), for two decimal places, OR=0.70 (95% CI 0.53, 0.94), and for three decimal places, 0.61 (95% CI 0.45, 0.81). Exact recall showed a similar pattern, with larger effects.
Conclusions: Using decimals in risk calculators offers no benefit and some cost. Rounding to the nearest integer is likely preferable for communicating risk estimates so that they might be remembered correctly and judged as believable
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
To have or not to have PSA test? Is the decision affected by whether information is presented sequentially vs. all-at-once?
No full textPurpose: An essential prerequisite of patient decision making is that the patient must be fully informed, especially when the decision is a preference-sensitive one, such as whether to undergo prostate cancer screening. However, the way information is provided to individuals might affect their decision. In the present studies, we examined the effect of two information presentation methods on people’s willingness to undergo screening depending on whether the information was presented all-at-once or as a series of sequential decisions.
Method: Participants indicated their willingness to engage in each behavior either right after reading each piece of information (sequential) or after reading all information.
Result: Study 1 examined decision making for a generic cancer on a sample of 336 participants (n = 218 females; age 25 to 71, M = 38.06, SD = 11.24). Relative to when the information was presented all at once, when the presentation was sequential, individuals showed a higher willingness to undergo the screening tests, both blood test (M = 4.07 vs. 4.52, t (334) = -2.52, p = .012) and biopsy (M = 3.66 vs. 4.07, t (334) = -2.09, p = .037), but also a stronger preference for watchful waiting (M = 3.29 vs. 2.65, t (334) = 3.33, p = .001). Study 2 investigated specifically prostate cancer, with a bigger ( N = 1541) and more specific sample (only male participants; age 40 to 71, M = 54.51, SD = 8.27), providing detailed and longer information, similarly to a patient decision aid. The effect of the two presentation methods disappeared (i.e., the differences between conditions were no longer significant) when the complexity of the information provided was increased, the target cancer was identified, and the respondents were in the age range to which the screening is usually proposed.
Conclusion: The results from Study 1 suggest that presenting information sequentially or all at once can affect decision making, in line with previous findings highlighting the potential effect of the way in which information is provided on people’s decision. However, in Study 2 the way in which information was presented did not affect prostate cancer screening decisions. Possible explanations are discussed, among which: a) limited vs. extensive information; b) generic vs. specific topic; and c) gender and age restrictions on the sample
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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