Numeracy levels influence shared decision-making and surgical outcomes: A scoping review of the literature

Background: Health literacy has been widely studied with regard to medical decision-making and health care access, however research regarding numeracy - the ability to comprehend and attach meaning to numbers - is more limited.Methods: A scoping review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted. We screened 132 abstracts and 12 studies were included in the analysis.Results: Surgical population numeracy ranged from 47 to 86.1%. We found heterogeneity in the scales used to measure numeracy and the cutoff values used to define adequate numeracy. Low numeracy was shown to influence the accuracy of patients' responses to quality of life measures used to determine surgical outcomes and was associated with patient overestimation of pre-operative risk. Adequate numeracy was correlated with improved outcomes 2-4 years after bariatric surgery.Conclusions: Patient numeracy is generally poor and has important implications for pre-operative risk understanding, accuracy of health measurement tools and long-term surgical outcomes.

Automated summary

This scoping review analyzed 12 studies and found that patient numeracy is generally poor, which has important implications for pre-operative risk understanding, accuracy of health measurement tools, and long-term surgical outcomes.