Communicating Conditional Probabilities in Medical Practice

Patients need to be informed correctly and comprehensibly about the implications of their medical test results. Reasoning in such situations, where, for example, a medical test result is used to make inferences on a particular disease, is called Bayesian reasoning. Prior research mostly concentrated on the ability to correctly calculate risks in Bayesian situations (so-called performance) and repeatedly demonstrated that performance is very low—even among medical experts. The need to also study communication within Bayesian situations has been brought forward. Here, we broaden the focus of Bayesian reasoning and present first insights into a study where medical students participated in a training course on the aspect of performance and show that this already improves the ability to judge doctor–patient communication within Bayesian situations.