When researchers asked more than 6,000 people over 50 how much medical risk they were willing to take, the answers did not cluster. They spread across the entire scale.
That finding, published July 29 in PLOS One by a team led by Nicholas Steel of the University of East Anglia, has a direct implication for anyone who has sat in an exam room while a clinician described a procedure. Recommendations built around what patients over a certain age typically want will fit some patients well and misfit a substantial number of others.
