GPs understanding of the benefits and harms of long term treatments. Paper out today bjgpopen.org/content/early/… Shows we GPs have a real knowledge gap about the absolute size of treatment effects. System problem, not individuals and some good news too. Thread 1/22
Thanks to co-authors Geoff Wong, Coral Milburn-Curtis, @Feakster86 @trishgreenhalgh . @NIHRcommunity -this done under an In-Practice fellowship and the excellent MSc in EBHC @CebmOxford Also @medmyths @sfinnikin Sally Higgibottom,@rcgp #overdiagnosis group 2/
I was moved to do this research after recognising my own knowledge gap a few years ago - that the actual treatment effects of stuff I was prescribing everyday were way off my expectations 3/
We know already that doctors of all specialities around the world have a poor understanding of the absolute size of benefits and harms of Rx. jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai… But never studied in UK GPs 4/
We did an online survey of UK GPs, got a large representative sample and asked a range of questions on absolute effects of 13 treatments, 10 conditions, 17 outcomes. They looked like this 5/ 
Questions framed as clinical cases, matching the populations of trial evidence. Importantly, we re-framed the questions in plain language/natural frequencies to avoid misunderstanding. GPs were asked for their "best estimate or rough idea" 6/
Twitter is not liking my thread making skills! will continue above
