Clinical Research Directory

Determinants of Primary Care Health Professionals' Numeracy Skills and Practices and Association With Patient Health Literacy and Quality of Care

To enable appropriate risk representation for patients, health care professionals (HCPs) must have a personal understanding of quantitative data. To date, a limited number of studies on physicians' numeracy skills and practices show that, although physicians perform better than the general population, not all physicians have mastered basic numeracy skills. Low numeracy among physicians was associated with lower quality adherence to good practice recommendations, inaccurate inferences about test results and side effect risks, and reluctance to share numerical information with patients. The primary objective will be to explore the determinants of the objective numeracy level of primary care professionals. A cross-sectional survey will be conducted on a sample of primary care professionals practicing in the west of Occitanie (former Midi-Pyrenées region). Objective numeracy will be measured using the Adaptive Berlin Numeracy Test (ABNT) and the Abbreviated Numeracy Scale, whereas subjective numeracy will be assessed using the Subjective Numeracy Scale (SNS-3). The Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) will be used for patients.