Assessment tools for disease risk perception in chronic patients: theoretical frameworks, psychometric properties,...

Disease risk perception is a subjective psychological construct that can predict health-promoting behaviors and support personalized chronic disease management. This narrative review summarizes existing risk perception assessment tools, analyzing their theoretical foundations, structures and psychometric properties. We trace the evolution of these tools from broad, generic scales to disease-specific evaluations for conditions such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes. The review also examines the supporting theoretical frameworks, such as the Health Belief Model, Risk Perception Theory, Optimism Bias Theory and the Dual-Process Model. There has been a shift from unidimensional to multidimensional psychological constructs, integrating both rationality and emotion. The evolution from generic to disease-specific assessments enables more targeted insights. However, current instruments face challenges such as insufficient cross-cultural validation, limited integration of emotional and cognitive factors, and inconsistent predictive validity for health behaviors. It is recommended that future research efforts concentrate on the development of comprehensive tools. It is imperative that these tools take into consideration sociocultural contexts and dual-processing mechanisms. The implementation of such tools has the potential to enhance the precision and predictive capacity of disease risk perception assessments, thereby facilitating the optimization of patient-centered interventions.