Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
have been thinking about that this is more diffi cult that it actually is,
these risks of 1 to 200, I haven't quite understood how big the risks are,
or how small. Probably it is fairly small but you think it is much, much
bigger.
When they try to understand the risk score, the women also
ask for more
information
, particularly information about how the risk score is
calculated
.
For example, some women ask where 'the borders' are, indicating that they
try to understand the possible range of outcomes. They also wonder how
the
divide
is made between the high and low risk, for instance what it actually
means that you are in the high risk zone if you have a risk of 1:249, but in
a low risk zone if you have 1:251. One needs something to relate the risk
fi gure to:
INTERVIEWER:
You think it is diffi cult to use these fi gures
METTE:
(29, risk score 1:71) Yes, I mean, 1 to 71 doesn't say very much.
You want to know, what is the range that most women my age will fi nd
themselves in. Do I have an unreasonably high risk, or is it evenly spread
on everybody from 1 to 250 and downwards, or have I ended up in the
bunch where most women are, or, I still don't know actually (…) I think
it is good to have a concrete information if the person you are talking to
still understands it is statistics. I do understand that it is not exactly 1 to
71, that I can understand (…) but low and medium, I think you will get
these question independently of how the information is presented
INTERVIEWER:
Should one ask
how
low risk?
METTE:
I do think they present these fi gures quite well, but you need
something to relate them to.
Here, we can see that Mette wants to know what 'the range' for women
her age is, that is what would be normal for women her age, or for 'most'
women, again indicating an effort to relate the fi gure to something. The
women ask what risk scores are possible, and what do other women have.
'Can they have one to two thousand?' They also wonder what 'the scale' is,
and what the risk fi gure would be in per cent? One woman says that in the
conversation with the midwife, her husband 'who thinks fast' said that their
risk score of 1:227 is less than 0.05 per cent risk, and that is nothing. Also,
the women try to
compare
their fi gure with other fi gures. Some compare with
fi gures their pregnant friends or colleagues have received, but if the fi gures of
their friends were much lower, they would feel even more at risk themselves.
In the next example, Daniela argues that it would be easier for her if she had
been able to compare with risk scores in her earlier pregnancies:
DANIELA:
(26, risk score 1:238) It is so diffi cult, because if I had had
something to compare with, if I had had these estimates with the two
others as well, I would have had something to compare with. Now I just
