Paper details:

Respond to the 2 discussion board post related to the above topic. Response will need to be at least 200 words and 1 reference. Reference must be cited in the response.

Elizabeth Midiri

Email has been sent.

12/11/2014 7:34:27 PM

Liz DQ 2

According to Muscatello, Searles, MacDonald & Jorm (2006) the use of overly technical language and unfamiliar statistical measures can be barriers to effectively communicating health information. In their study, healthcare workers were divided into two groups.  The control group received a booklet of twelve graphs from original publications.  The intervention group received a booklet of the same graphs with design modifications. Each participant completed a questionnaire with 39 interpretation tasks. One intervention that produced improvements was simply changing the pie chart to a bar graph. It is important to know when to use a specific chart or graph. A pie chart is most appropriate when comparing parts of a whole; however, they do not show changes over a period of time. An overall operating budget would be appropriate in a pie chart form.  The chart would show the various departments expenditures, for example.  However, if there was a need for a comparison over time (the expenditures for a department over the past three years), a bar graph would be more appropriate (“How to Choose,” n.d.).

In healthcare, a disease or disorder described as an “umbrella” term could be appropriately displayed using a pie chart.  Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), is a disorder in which the whole (FTLD) is divided into three parts (FTLD-tau, FTLD-TDP, and FTLD-FUS) (Josephs et al, 2011).  In the Prasad et al (2009) study of 51 patients with dementia, researchers wanted to know how many were taking anti-psychotic medications.  The whole would be the 51 participants with dementia and the pie chart would appropriately depict the percentages taking the identified medications.

I have attached three pie charts.  The third one is a humorous one that rings true in my life.

References

How to Choose Which Type of Graph to Use? (n.d.). Retrieved December 11, 2014, from National Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/help/user_guide/graph/whentouse.asp

Josephs, K. A., Hodges, J. R., Snowden, J. S., Mackenzie, I. R., Neumann, M., Mann, D. M., & Dickson, D. W. (2011). Neuropathological background of phenotypical variability in frontotemporal dementia. Acta Neuropathologica, 122(2), 137-153. doi:10.1007/s00401-011-0839-6

Muscatello, D. J., Searles, A., Macdonald, R., & Jorm, L. (2006). Communicating population health statistics through graphs: a randomised controlled trial of graph design interventions. BMC Medicine, 433-15. doi:10.1186/1741-7015-4-33

Prasad, K., Gupta, H., Bharath, S., Prakash, O., Sivakumar, P. T., Kumar, C. N., & Varghese, M. (2009). Clinical practice with antidementia and antipsychotic drugs: Audit from a geriatric clinic in India. Indian Journal Of Psychiatry, 51(4), 272-275. doi:10.4103/0019-5545.58292

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