Interestingly, these differences between physicians and patients were only found in aspects that were not different in subgroups of physicians, implicating that the misinterpretations of patient assessments occurred with all physicians, not only with some of them.
Recall that patient improvement inherently contains error, so that an error on a single measurement could cause a misinterpretation of the patient's state.
A similar finding was reported from the UC: NORMAL survey [ 7], suggesting either a potential underestimation of patients' symptoms by HCPs, or a misinterpretation of symptoms by patients.
Although there are discreet scientific and ethical challenges in each phase of clinical trial, the randomised phase III trial has been shown to be particularly problematic in relation to misinterpretation and poor understanding of patient information, often in relation to the concept of randomisation (Sutherland et al, 1990; Lovato et al, 1997; Featherstone and Donovan, 2002).
Misidentification or misinterpretation of prescriptions or patients appeared to occur frequently but their origins were not well described.
Their narratives have many idiosyncratic aspects, but they all fall under the general type description above – they all involve misinterpretation of DNR clauses in patients' medical records.
Another important and pioneering finding of the present study was the demonstration that unintentional fallacious staging could result in significant misinterpretation of survival outcomes in patients with LAPC.
Barriers identified were: patients' lack of comfort with using technology, misinterpretation of e-DA results by patients, time and education for providers to interpret results, and time for providers to offer counselling.
It has been suggested that misinterpretation of these instructions adversely affects patient compliance, appropriate use of medications, treatment, follow-up and outcome [1 3, 5 9].
