Mathias Gakwerere, Jean Pierre Ndayisenga, Anaclet Ngabonzima, Thiery Claudien Uhawenimana, Assumpta Yamuragiye, Florien Harindimana, Bernard Ngabo Rwabufigiri
Access to continuous professional development for capacity building among nurses and midwives providing emergency obstetric and neonatal care in Rwanda
BMC health services research
background medical students often problems bayesian reasoning situations representing statistical information natural frequencies instead probabilities visualizing eg doubletrees net diagrams leads higher accuracy solving tasks however doubletrees net diagrams already contain correct solution task solution could read diagrams yet studied medical education study examined influence information format probabilities v frequencies visualization doubletree v net diagram accuracy speed bayesian judgments methods total 142 medical students different university medical schools munich kiel goettingen erlangen nuremberg berlin regensburg germany predicted posterior probabilities 4 different medical bayesian reasoning tasks resulting 3factorial 2 2 4 design diagnostic efficiency different versions represented median time divided percentage correct inferences results frequency visualizations led significantly higher accuracy faster judgments probability visualizations participants solved 80 tasks correctly frequency doubletree frequency net diagram visualizations probabilities also led relatively high performance rates 73 probability doubletree 70 probability net diagram median time correct inference fastest frequency double tree 208 min followed frequency net diagram probability doubletree 226 min probability net diagram 233 min type visualization result significant difference discussion frequency doubletrees frequency net diagrams help answer bayesian tasks accurately also quickly respective probability visualizations surprisingly effect information format probabilities v frequencies performance higher previous studies medical students seem also quite capable identifying correct solution bayesian task among probabilities probability visualizations frequency doubletrees frequency nets help answer bayesian tasks accurately also quickly respective probability visualizationsin doubletrees net diagrams effect information format probabilities v natural frequencies performance remarkably lower highperforming sample shown previous studies