Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Volume 85, Issue 10 , Pages 1729-1731, October 2004

Using the number needed to treat in clinical practice

  • Douglas L. Weeks, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Inland Northwest Health Services, Spokane, WA
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests to Douglas L. Weeks, PhD, Inland Northwest Health Services, 157 S Howard St, Ste 500, Spokane, WA 99201
    • ,
  • J.Timothy Noteboom, PhD, PT

      Affiliations

    • Department of Physical Therapy, Regis University, Denver, CO, USA

Abstract 

Weeks DL, Noteboom JT. Using the number needed to treat in clinical practice. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2004;85:1729–31.

The number needed to treat (NNT) is gaining attention as a method of reporting the results of clinical trails with dichotomous outcome measures. The NNT is defined as the number of patients who would need to be treated, on average, with a specific intervention to prevent 1 additional bad outcome or to achieve 1 desirable outcome in a given time period. Because it reports outcomes in terms of patient numbers, it is extremely useful to clinicians for making decisions about the effort expended with a particular intervention to achieve a single positive outcome. This special communication describes the NNT statistic and its utility for choosing clinical interventions.

Key words:  Confidence intervals , Evidence-based medicine , Outcome assessment (health care) , Rehabilitation , Risk reduction

 

 No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the authors(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.

PII: S0003-9993(04)00427-7

doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2004.03.025

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Volume 85, Issue 10 , Pages 1729-1731, October 2004

Article Tools