IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v35y2015i4p501-511.html

Is Patients’ Numeracy Related to Physical and Mental Health?

Author

Listed:
  • Rocio Garcia-Retamero
  • Allen Andrade
  • Joseph Sharit
  • Jorge G. Ruiz

Abstract

Objective. There is compelling evidence showing that health literacy influences health outcomes. However, there is a dearth of research investigating this issue in the vast literature on numeracy—the ability to accurately interpret numerical information about risk, a skill that is only moderately correlated with health literacy. In a cross-sectional study, we investigated whether objective and subjective numeracy is related to objective and subjective health outcomes. Objective (subjective) numeracy is actual (self-reported) numerical competence. Objective outcomes include prevalence of comorbidity and prescribed medications. Subjective outcomes include perceptions of physical and mental health. Methods. A convenience sample of 502 male individuals receiving outpatient care at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center reported their demographics and answered a survey measuring objective and subjective numeracy, trust in physicians, satisfaction with role in medical decision making, perceptions of physical and mental health, and risky habits. We computed patients’ body mass index (BMI) and their age-adjusted Charlson index—an extensively studied comorbidity index for predicting mortality in clinical research. We retrieved number of prescribed medications from medical records. Results. Compared with patients who had high objective numeracy, patients with low objective numeracy showed higher prevalence of comorbidities and took more prescribed medications. Compared with patients who had high subjective numeracy, patients with low subjective numeracy had more negative perceptions of their physical and mental health. These conclusions held after controlling for the effect of demographics, risky habits, BMI, trust in physicians, and satisfaction with role in decision making, suggesting that numeracy has a unique, significant contribution to health outcomes beyond the effect of these factors. Conclusions. Our research documents for the first time that self-reported numeracy is related to perceptions of health, whereas objective numeracy is related to actual health, laying the groundwork for future research on the effect of numeracy on health outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocio Garcia-Retamero & Allen Andrade & Joseph Sharit & Jorge G. Ruiz, 2015. "Is Patients’ Numeracy Related to Physical and Mental Health?," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 35(4), pages 501-511, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:35:y:2015:i:4:p:501-511
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X15578126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X15578126
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X15578126?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrea D. Gurmankin & Jonathan Baron & Katrina Armstrong, 2004. "Intended Message Versus Message Received in Hypothetical Physician Risk Communications: Exploring the Gap," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(5), pages 1337-1347, October.
    2. Ellen Peters & Irwin P. Levin, 2008. "Dissecting the risky-choice framing effect: Numeracy as an individual-difference factor in weighting risky and riskless options," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 3(6), pages 435-448, August.
    3. Garcia-Retamero, Rocio & Hoffrage, Ulrich, 2013. "Visual representation of statistical information improves diagnostic inferences in doctors and their patients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 27-33.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang, Bi & Ye, Tian & Liu, Stephanie Q. & Zhao, Yujie, 2024. "How consumers process online hotel ratings," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    2. Jakub Traczyk & Agata Sobkow & Kamil Fulawka & Jakub Kus & Dafina Petrova & Rocio Garcia-Retamero, 2018. "Numerate decision makers don't use more effortful strategies unless it pays: A process tracing investigation of skilled and adaptive strategy selection in risky decision making," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(4), pages 372-381, July.
    3. Sobkow, Agata & Olszewska, Angelika & Traczyk, Jakub, 2020. "Multiple numeric competencies predict decision outcomes beyond fluid intelligence and cognitive reflection," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Mondal, Supratik & Traczyk, Jakub, 2023. "Conditionality of adaptiveness: Investigating the relationship between numeracy and adaptive behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muhammad Waqas & Alishba Hania & Farzan Yahya & Iqra Malik, 2023. "Enhancing Cybersecurity: The Crucial Role of Self-Regulation, Information Processing, and Financial Knowledge in Combating Phishing Attacks," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    2. Todd McElroy & David L. Dickinson & Irwin P. Levin, 2019. "Thinking About Decisions: An Integrative Approach of Person and Task Factors," Working Papers 19-04, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    3. Syngjoo Choi & Jeongbin Kim & Eungik Lee & Jungmin Lee, 2022. "Probability Weighting and Cognitive Ability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5201-5215, July.
    4. Emmanuel Kemel & Corina Paraschiv, 2018. "Deciding about human lives: an experimental measure of risk attitudes under prospect theory," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 51(1), pages 163-192, June.
    5. James Alm & Lilith Burgstaller & Arrita Domi & Amanda März & Matthias Kasper, 2023. "Nudges, Boosts, and Sludge: Using New Behavioral Approaches to Improve Tax Compliance," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-22, September.
    6. McElroy, Todd & Dickinson, David L., 2010. "Thoughtful days and valenced nights: How much will you think about the problem?," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(7), pages 516-523, December.
    7. Kuehnhanss, Colin R. & Heyndels, Bruno, 2018. "All’s fair in taxation: A framing experiment with local politicians," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 26-40.
    8. Mondal, Supratik & Traczyk, Jakub, 2023. "Conditionality of adaptiveness: Investigating the relationship between numeracy and adaptive behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    9. Eric R. Stone & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Abigail M. Wilkins & Emily M. Boker & Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, 2017. "Designing Graphs to Communicate Risks: Understanding How the Choice of Graphical Format Influences Decision Making," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 612-628, April.
    10. Villanova, Daniel & Pandelaere, Mario, 2024. "A Numeracy-Task interaction model of perceived differences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    11. Vivianne H. M. Visschers & Ree M. Meertens & Wim W. F. Passchier & Nanne N. K. De Vries, 2009. "Probability Information in Risk Communication: A Review of the Research Literature," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(2), pages 267-287, February.
    12. Nicolas Eber & Patrick Roger & Tristan Roger, 2024. "Finance and intelligence: An overview of the literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 503-554, April.
    13. Aysegul Kanay & Denis Hilton & Laetitia Charalambides & Jean-Baptiste Corrégé & Eva Inaudi & Laurent Waroquier & Stéphane Cézéra, 2021. "Making the carbon basket count: Goal setting promotes sustainable consumption in a simulated online supermarket," Post-Print hal-03403040, HAL.
    14. Ruttan, Rachel L. & Nordgren, Loran F., 2016. "The strength to face the facts: Self-regulation defends against defensive information processing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 86-98.
    15. Saima Ghazal & Edward T. Cokely & Rocio Garcia-Retamero, 2014. "Predicting biases in very highly educated samples: Numeracy and metacognition," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9(1), pages 15-34, January.
    16. Riege, Anine H. & Teigen, Karl Halvor, 2013. "Additivity neglect in probability estimates: Effects of numeracy and response format," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 41-52.
    17. Nathan F. Dieckmann & Paul Slovic & Ellen M. Peters, 2009. "The Use of Narrative Evidence and Explicit Likelihood by Decisionmakers Varying in Numeracy," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(10), pages 1473-1488, October.
    18. Jessica K. Witt, 2020. "The Precision-Bias Distinction for Evaluating Visual Decision Aids for Risk Perception," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 40(6), pages 846-853, August.
    19. Binswanger, Johannes & Salm, Martin, 2017. "Does everyone use probabilities? The role of cognitive skills," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 73-85.
    20. Michelle McDowell & Mirta Galesic & Gerd Gigerenzer, 2018. "Natural Frequencies Do Foster Public Understanding of Medical Tests: Comment on Pighin, Gonzalez, Savadori, and Girotto (2016)," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 38(3), pages 390-399, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:35:y:2015:i:4:p:501-511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.