In eight consultations (11%; 95% CI 4-19%), the GPs combined such verbal qualifiers with numerical information.
In 51 of 70 consultations (73%; 95% CI 62-8462-84%s cardiovascularariskvascular risk to their patients using verbal qualifiers only.
Verbal qualifiers are the most often used communication format, though recommendations favor numerical and visual formats, with visual formats resulting in better understanding than others.
In 73% of 70 consultations, verbal qualifiers were used exclusively to communicate cardiovascular risk, compared to numerical (11%) and visual (16%) formats.
Patients understand information about risk better if it is communicated in numerical or visual formats (e.g. graphs) compared to verbal qualifiers only.
Nevertheless, a high proportion of patients in our sample indicated that they subjectively understood the communicated risk fairly well when confronted with verbal qualifiers or numerical formats alone.
Moreover, the straightforward use of verbal qualifiers by doctors is a time-saving approach not requiring any preparation time, unlike choosing adequate numbers or drawing graphs.
Risk can be communicated by words (verbal qualifiers, e.g., "your risk is high" or "this is not good for your health"), by numerical formats (absolute percentages, relative percentages, natural frequencies), by visual formats, or by a combination of these methods [ 1, 2].
He has some verbal tics, saying "literally" when he means "figuratively," adding the diffident qualifier "sort of" in ways that drain punch from his sentences.
All items are assessed by a verbal descriptive problem scale, the same as the so called ICF qualifier, the five categories being no, slight, moderate, major, and total problems.
