Communicating about overdiagnosis: Learning from community focus groups on osteoporosis

Overdiagnosis is considered a risk associated with the diagnosis of osteoporosis – as many people diagnosed won’t experience harm from the condition. As yet there’s little evidence on community understanding of overdiagnosis outside cancer- where it is an established risk of some screening programs – or effective ways to communicate about it. We examined community understanding around overdiagnosis of osteoporosis, to optimise communication strategies about this problem. The data generated by the focus groups study is provided in Excel format below.过度诊断(Overdiagnosis)被视作骨质疏松症(osteoporosis)诊断环节的潜在风险——诸多被确诊的患者实际上并不会因该病症遭受健康损害。迄今为止，除癌症领域外（过度诊断已是部分癌症筛查项目公认的风险），针对公众对过度诊断的认知现状，以及与之相关的有效沟通路径的研究证据仍较为稀缺。本研究围绕公众对骨质疏松症过度诊断的认知展开调研，以期优化针对该问题的沟通策略。本焦点小组研究(focus groups study)所生成的数据已以下列Excel格式提供。