“Media Messages about Screenings and their Role in Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment.” By Gary Schwitzer, Engaging the Patient.
“Disclaimer: the following is not an anti-screening message. It is, however, a call for improved accuracy, balance and completeness in messages about screening tests.
As part of health literacy month, Schwitzer explains that while some journalists have excelled at explaining the trade-offs of potential benefits and potential harms from screening tests, far more they promote unhelpful themes:
- Emphasizing or exaggerating potential benefits while minimizing or ignoring potential harms
- Framing screening as if it were a mandate, not a choice
- Emphasizing patient anecdotes of people who claim their life was saved by screening – something that can’t be proven
- Missing the stories of people who make rational decisions not to be screened, or the stories of people who regret making ill-informed screening decisions
It is far easier to report about screening using only the perspectives of those who promote screening – some of them with a vested interest. It is far more difficult to explain nuance, evidence, and reasons why there can be harms from a supposedly simple screening test.
Related:
- Amy Robach Story Spreads Heartfelt Misinformation by Gayle Sulik, Psychology Today, Dec. 10, 2013.
- The Mammogram Myth, Alive and Well on “Good Morning America” by Gayle Sulik, Psychology Today “Essential Reads,” Nov. 14, 2013.
- Time to debunk the mammography myth by Gayle Sulik and Bonnie Spanier, CNN, Mar. 18, 2014.
- Addition of screening mammograms adds no benefit, but causes harm, Canadian study finds by Gayle Sulik and Bonnie Spanier, Breast Cancer Consortium, Feb 18, 2014.
