Key Concepts for Informed Health Choices: a framework for helping people learn how to assess treatment claims and make informed choices
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Date
2018-01-30
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMJ Evid Based Med
Abstract
Many claims about the effects of treatments,
though well intentioned, are wrong. Indeed, they
are sometimes deliberately misleading to serve
interests other than the well-being of patients
and the public. People need to know how to
spot unreliable treatment claims so that they can
protect themselves and others from harm. The
ability to assess the trustworthiness of treatment
claims is often lacking. Acquiring this ability
depends on being familiar with, and correctly
applying, some key concepts, for example,
that’ association is not the same as causation.’
The Informed Health Choices (IHC) Project has
identified 36 such concepts and shown that people
can be taught to use them in decision making. A
randomised trial in Uganda, for example, showed
that primary school children with poor reading
skills could be taught to apply 12 of the IHC
Key Concepts. The list of IHC Key Concepts has
proven to be effective in providing a framework
for developing and evaluating IHC resources to
help children to think critically about treatment
claims. The list also provides a framework for
retrieving, coding and organising other teaching
and learning materials for learners of any age.
It should help teachers, researchers, clinicians,
and patients to structure critical thinking about
the trustworthiness of claims about treatment
effects.
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Citation
Chalmers, I., Oxman, A. D., Austvoll-Dahlgren, A., Ryan-Vig, S., Pannell, S., Sewankambo, N., ... & Badenoch, D. (2018). Key concepts for informed health choices: a framework for helping people learn how to assess treatment claims and make informed choices. BMJ Evid Based Med, 23(1), 29-33.