An integrative model of shared decision making in medical encounters

OBJECTIVE

Given the fluidity with which the term shared decision making (SDM) is used in teaching, assessment and research, we conducted a focused and systematic review of articles that specifically address SDM to determine the range of conceptual definitions.

METHODS

In April 2005, we ran a Pubmed (Medline) search to identify articles published through 31 December 2003 with the words shared decision making in the title or abstract. The search yielded 681 citations, 342 of which were about SDM in the context of physician-patient encounters and published in English. We read and reviewed the full text of all 342 articles, and got any non-redundant references to SDM, which yielded an additional 76 articles.

RESULTS

Of the 418 articles examined, 161 (38.5%) had a conceptual definition of SDM. We identified 31 separate concepts used to explicate SDM, but only "patient values/preferences" (67.1%) and "options" (50.9%) appeared in more than half the 161 definitions. Relatively few articles explicitly recognized and integrated previous work.

CONCLUSION

Our review reveals that there is no shared definition of SDM. We propose a definition that integrates the extant literature base and outlines essential elements that must be present for patients and providers to engage in the process of SDM.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

The integrative definition of SDM is intended to provide a useful foundation for describing and operationalizing SDM in further research.

Validation of a decision regret scale

BACKGROUND

As patients become more involved in health care decisions, there may be greater opportunity for decision regret. The authors could not find a validated, reliable tool for measuring regret after health care decisions.

METHODS

A 5-item scale was administered to 4 patient groups making different health care decisions. Convergent validity was determined by examining the scale's correlation with satisfaction measures, decisional conflict, and health outcome measures.

RESULTS

The scale showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.81 to 0.92). It correlated strongly with decision satisfaction (r = -0.40 to -0.60), decisional conflict (r = 0.31 to 0.52), and overall rated quality of life (r = -0.25 to -0.27). Groups differing on feelings about a decision also differed on rated regret: F(2, 190) = 31.1, P < 0.001. Regret was greater among those who changed their decisions than those who did not, t(175) = 16.11, P < 0.001.

CONCLUSIONS

The scale is a useful indicator of health care decision regret at a given point in time.

Barriers and facilitators to implementing shared decision-making in clinical practice: update of a systematic review of health professionals' perceptions

OBJECTIVE

To update a systematic review on the barriers and facilitators to implementing shared decision-making in clinical practice as perceived by health professionals.

METHODS

From March to December 2006, PubMed, Embase, CINHAL, PsycINFO, and Dissertation Abstracts were searched. Studies were included if they reported on health professionals' perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing shared decision-making in practice. Quality of the included studies was assessed. Content analysis was performed with a pre-established taxonomy.

RESULTS

Out of 1130 titles, 10 new eligible studies were identified for a total of 38 included studies compared to 28 in the previous version. The vast majority of participants (n=3231) were physicians (89%). The three most often reported barriers were: time constraints (22/38) and lack of applicability due to patient characteristics (18/38) and the clinical situation (16/38). The three most often reported facilitators were: provider motivation (23/38) and positive impact on the clinical process (16/38) and patient outcomes (16/38).

CONCLUSION

This systematic review update confirms the results of the original review.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Interventions to foster implementation of shared decision-making in clinical practice will need to address a range of factors.

Not all patients want to participate in decision making. A national study of public preferences

BACKGROUND

The Institute of Medicine calls for physicians to engage patients in making clinical decisions, but not every patient may want the same level of participation.

OBJECTIVES

1) To assess public preferences for participation in decision making in a representative sample of the U.S. population. 2) To understand how demographic variables and health status influence people's preferences for participation in decision making.

DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS

A population-based survey of a fully representative sample of English-speaking adults was conducted in concert with the 2002 General Social Survey (N= 2,765). Respondents expressed preferences ranging from patient-directed to physician-directed styles on each of 3 aspects of decision making (seeking information, discussing options, making the final decision). Logistic regression was used to assess the relationships of demographic variables and health status to preferences.

MAIN RESULTS

Nearly all respondents (96%) preferred to be offered choices and to be asked their opinions. In contrast, half of the respondents (52%) preferred to leave final decisions to their physicians and 44% preferred to rely on physicians for medical knowledge rather than seeking out information themselves. Women, more educated, and healthier people were more likely to prefer an active role in decision making. African-American and Hispanic respondents were more likely to prefer that physicians make the decisions. Preferences for an active role increased with age up to 45 years, but then declined.

CONCLUSION

This population-based study demonstrates that people vary substantially in their preferences for participation in decision making. Physicians and health care organizations should not assume that patients wish to participate in clinical decision making, but must assess individual patient preferences and tailor care accordingly.

Shared decision making: really putting patients at the centre of healthcare

Although many clinicians feel they already use shared decision making, research shows a perception-reality gap. A M Stiggelbout and colleagues discuss why it is important and highlight some best practices.

Patients using the Internet to obtain health information: how this affects the patient-health professional relationship

OBJECTIVE

Health information is one of the most frequently sought topics on the Internet. A review of the literature was carried out to determine the use of the Internet for health information by the patient and how this could affect the patient-health professional relationship.

METHODS

This study is a literature review, summarizing multiple empirical studies on a single subject and is not intended to be a meta-analysis.

RESULTS

The review showed that the majority of health related Internet searches by patients are for specific medical conditions. They are carried out by the patient: (1) before the clinical encounter to seek information to manage their own healthcare independently and/or to decide whether they need professional help; (2) after the clinical encounter for reassurance or because of dissatisfaction with the amount of detailed information provided by the health professional during the encounter.

CONCLUSION

There has been a shift in the role of the patient from passive recipient to active consumer of health information. Health professionals are responding to the more 'Internet informed' patient in one or more of three ways: (1) the health professional feels threatened by the information the patient brings and responds defensively by asserting their 'expert opinion' (health professional-centred relationship). (2) The health professional and patient collaborate in obtaining and analysing the information (patient-centred relationship). (3) The health professional will guide patients to reliable health information websites (Internet prescription).

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

It is important that health professionals acknowledge patients' search for knowledge, that they discuss the information offered by patients and guide them to reliable and accurate health websites. It is recommended that courses, such as 'patient informatics' are integrated in health professionals' education.

The Role of Clinical Trial Participation in Cancer Research: Barriers, Evidence, and Strategies

Fewer than one in 20 adult patients with cancer enroll in cancer clinical trials. Although barriers to trial participation have been the subject of frequent study, the rate of trial participation has not changed substantially over time. Barriers to trial participation are structural, clinical, and attitudinal, and they differ according to demographic and socioeconomic factors. In this article, we characterize the nature of cancer clinical trial barriers, and we consider global and local strategies for reducing barriers. We also consider the specific case of adolescents with cancer and show that the low rate of trial enrollment in this age group strongly correlates with limited improvements in cancer population outcomes compared with other age groups. Our analysis suggests that a clinical trial system that enrolls patients at a higher rate produces treatment advances at a faster rate and corresponding improvements in cancer population outcomes. Viewed in this light, the issue of clinical trial enrollment is foundational, lying at the heart of the cancer clinical trial endeavor. Fewer barriers to trial participation would enable trials to be completed more quickly and would improve the generalizability of trial results. Moreover, increased accrual to trials is important for patients, because trials provide patients the opportunity to receive the newest treatments. In an era of increasing emphasis on a treatment decision-making process that incorporates the patient perspective, the opportunity for patients to choose trial participation for their care is vital.

A conceptual framework for adaptive preventive interventions

Recently, adaptive interventions have emerged as a new perspective on prevention and treatment. Adaptive interventions resemble clinical practice in that different dosages of certain prevention or treatment components are assigned to different individuals, and/or within individuals across time, with dosage varying in response to the intervention needs of individuals. To determine intervention need and thus assign dosage, adaptive interventions use prespecified decision rules based on each participant's values on key characteristics, called tailoring variables. In this paper, we offer a conceptual framework for adaptive interventions, discuss principles underlying the design and evaluation of such interventions, and review some areas where additional research is needed.

Patient Participation in Medical Consultations

BACKGROUND

Patients vary in their willingness and ability to actively participate in medical consultations. Because more active patient participation contributes to improved health outcomes and quality of care, it is important to understand factors affecting the way patients communicate with healthcare providers.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this study were to examine the extent to which patient participation in medical interactions is influenced by 1) the patient's personal characteristics (age, gender, education, ethnicity); 2) the physician's communication style (eg, use of partnership-building and supportive talk); and 3) the clinical setting (eg, the health condition, medical specialty).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND SUBJECTS

The authors conducted a post hoc cross-sectional analysis of 279 physician-patient interactions from 3 clinical sites: 1) primary care patients in Sacramento, California, 2) patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from the San Francisco Bay area, and 3) patients with lung cancer from a VA hospital in Texas.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The outcome measures included the degree to which patients asked questions, were assertive, and expressed concerns and the degree to which physicians used partnership-building and supportive talk (praise, reassurance, empathy) in their consultations.

RESULTS

The majority of active participation behaviors were patient-initiated (84%) rather than prompted by physician partnership-building or supportive talk. Patients who were more active participants received more facilitative communication from physicians, were more educated, and were more likely to be white than of another ethnicity. Women more willingly expressed negative feelings and concerns. There was considerable variability in patient participation across the 3 clinical settings. Female physicians were more likely to use supportive talk than males, and physicians generally used less supportive talk with nonwhite compared with white patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Patient participation in medical encounters depends on a complex interplay of personal, physician, and contextual factors. Although more educated and white patients tended to be more active participants than their counterparts, the strongest predictors of patient participation were situation-specific, namely the clinical setting and the physician's communicative style. Physicians could more effectively facilitate patient involvement by more frequently using partnership-building and supportive communication. Future research should investigate how the nuances of individual clinical settings (eg, the health condition, time allotted for the visit) impose constraints or opportunities for more effective patient involvement in care.

Affect, risk, and decision making

Risk is perceived and acted on in 2 fundamental ways. Risk as feelings refers to individuals' fast, instinctive, and intuitive reactions to danger. Risk as analysis brings logic, reason, and scientific deliberation to bear on risk management. Reliance on risk as feelings is described with "the affect heuristic." The authors trace the development of this heuristic across a variety of research paths. The authors also discuss some of the important practical implications resulting from ways that this heuristic impacts how people perceive and evaluate risk, and, more generally, how it influences all human decision making. Finally, some important implications of the affect heuristic for communication and decision making pertaining to cancer prevention and treatment are briefly discussed.

Patient empowerment in theory and practice: polysemy or cacophony?

OBJECTIVE

This paper examines how the term "empowerment" has been used in relation to the care and education of patients with chronic conditions over the past decade.

METHODS

Fifty-five articles were analysed, using a qualitative method of thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Empowerment is more often defined according to some of its anticipated outcomes rather than to its very nature. However, because they do not respect the principle of self-determination, most anticipated outcomes and most evaluation criteria are not specific to empowerment. Concerning the process of empowerment, our analysis shows that (i) the educational objectives of an empowerment-based approach are not disease-specific, but concern the reinforcement or development of general psychosocial skills instead; (ii) empowering methods of education are necessarily patient-centred and based on experiential learning; and (iii) the provider-patient relationship needs to be continuous and self-involving on both sides.

CONCLUSION

Our analysis did not allow for the unfolding of a well-articulated theory on patient empowerment but revealed a number of guiding principles and values.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

The goals and outcomes of patient empowerment should neither be predefined by the health-care professionals, nor restricted to some disease and treatment-related outcomes, but should be discussed and negotiated with every patient, according to his/her own particular situation and life priorities.

Sharing decisions in cancer care

Previous studies have demonstrated that the majority of cancer patients fail to achieve their desired level of participation during treatment decision making. However, it is unclear whether this failure affects patient well-being and satisfaction. Furthermore, whilst shared decision making is currently espoused as the preferred model for doctor patient relations, little empirical evidence exists showing it has beneficial effects for patients. We aimed to evaluate the impact of shared decision making and the achievement of preferred role on patient anxiety, recall of information, and satisfaction. Patients with cancer indicated their preferred level of participation in decision making and preferences for information and emotional support prior to their initial consultation with an oncologist. Anxiety was assessed prior to and immediately after the consultation and recall seven days after the consultation. Anxiety was reassessed at two-weeks post-consultation at which time patients also reported their satisfaction with the consultation and perceived role of participation in treatment decision making. Satisfaction with the information and emotional support received was also evaluated. Of the 233 patients available for analysis, a match between preferred and perceived roles was found for over one-third of patients (34%), with 29% more active and 37% less involved in decision making than preferred. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that role mismatch significantly predicted changes in anxiety levels from pre to immediate postconsultation (p = 0.03). However, irrespective of preferred role in decision making, perceived role, but not role mismatch, significantly and independently predicted satisfaction with both the consultation (p = 0.0005) and the amount of information and emotional support received from the doctor (p = 0.004). Patients who reported a shared role in decision making were most satisfied with the consultation and with the information about treatment and emotional support received. Those who reported that either themselves or the doctor exclusively made the decision were least satisfied. These findings underscore the pre-eminence of the shared decision making model and suggest that encouraging participation may be the safest standard approach. Doctor - as well as patient - based interventions are required to promote patient participation.

Optimal matches of patient preferences for information, decision-making and interpersonal behavior: evidence, models and interventions

OBJECTIVE

A comprehensive review was conducted of the theoretical and empirical work that addresses the preference-match strategy in physician-patient communication.

METHODS

Searches were conducted on Medline, PsychINFO, InFoTrac One File Plus, Sociological Abstracts, and Dissertation Abstracts through 2004. The following keywords were used: patient preferred and received information; patient preferred and actualized treatment decision-making; patient-physician beliefs in shared decision-making; patient-physician match, fit, or concordance; reciprocal relationship or mutuality; doctor-patient affiliation, control, relationship; match/fit between patient and physician in affiliation, control, or relationship.

RESULTS

Findings revealed varying degrees of support for the positive effects of matching patients' preferred levels of information, decisional control, and consultative interpersonal behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings justify not only continued but expanded research efforts in this area that would incorporate recommended changes in research design and implementation. PRACTICE AND RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS: Assessment strategies and match interventions are discussed that, if evidence continues to be supportive, might routinely optimize patient-physician encounters toward more positive outcomes. Methodological guidelines are suggested that can improve future preference-match studies of the patient-physician interaction. Practitioners need to consider adoption of patient-match assessment and intervention strategies in addition to recent exclusive concentrations on patient-centered and shared decision-making approaches.

Consumer-Based Wearable Activity Trackers Increase Physical Activity Participation: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

The range of benefits associated with regular physical activity participation is irrefutable. Despite the well-known benefits, physical inactivity remains one of the major contributing factors to ill-health throughout industrialized countries. Traditional lifestyle interventions such as group education or telephone counseling are effective at increasing physical activity participation; however, physical activity levels tend to decline over time. Consumer-based wearable activity trackers that allow users to objectively monitor activity levels are now widely available and may offer an alternative method for assisting individuals to remain physically active.

OBJECTIVE

This review aimed to determine the effects of interventions utilizing consumer-based wearable activity trackers on physical activity participation and sedentary behavior when compared with interventions that do not utilize activity tracker feedback.

METHODS

A systematic review was performed searching the following databases for studies that included the use of a consumer-based wearable activity tracker to improve physical activity participation: Cochrane Controlled Register of Trials, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, SPORTDiscus, and Health Technology Assessments. Controlled trials of adults comparing the use of a consumer-based wearable activity tracker with other nonactivity tracker-based interventions were included. The main outcome measures were physical activity participation and sedentary behavior. All studies were assessed for risk of bias, and the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system was used to rank the quality of evidence. The guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement were followed. A random-effects meta-analysis was completed on the included outcome measures to estimate the treatment effect of interventions that included an activity tracker compared with a control group.

RESULTS

There was a significant increase in daily step count (standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.24; 95% CI 0.16 to 0.33; P<.001), moderate and vigorous physical activity (SMD 0.27; 95% CI 0.15 to 0.39; P<.001), and energy expenditure (SMD 0.28; 95% CI 0.03 to 0.54; P=.03) and a nonsignificant decrease in sedentary behavior (SMD -0.20; 95% CI -0.43 to 0.03; P=.08) following the intervention versus control comparator across all studies in the meta-analyses. In general, included studies were at low risk of bias, except for performance bias. Heterogeneity varied across the included meta-analyses ranging from low (I2=3%) for daily step count through to high (I2=67%) for sedentary behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Utilizing a consumer-based wearable activity tracker as either the primary component of an intervention or as part of a broader physical activity intervention has the potential to increase physical activity participation. As the effects of physical activity interventions are often short term, the inclusion of a consumer-based wearable activity tracker may provide an effective tool to assist health professionals to provide ongoing monitoring and support.

Patient empowerment: reflections on the challenge of fostering the adoption of a new paradigm

Diabetes is a self-managed illness in which the decisions most affecting the health and well being of patients are made by the patients themselves. Many of these decisions involve routine activities of daily living (e.g., nutrition, physical activity). Effective diabetes care requires patients and health care professionals to collaborate in the development of self-management plans that integrate the clinical expertise of health care professionals with the concerns, priorities and resources of the patient. Collaborative diabetes care requires a new "empowerment" paradigm that involves a fundamental redefinition of roles and relationships of health care professionals and patients. The challenges of fostering the adoption of a new paradigm differ substantially from those associated with the introduction of new technology. Those challenges are discussed in this paper.

Patients' perceived barriers to active self-management of chronic conditions

Few studies have elicited barriers to patient self-management of chronic conditions, and only one concerned people with two or more conditions. To inform development of Homing in on Health (HioH), a home delivery variant of the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP), we conducted 10 focus groups involving 54 chronically ill people, 46 (85%) of whom had multiple conditions. The goals were to elicit perceived barriers to active self-management and to accessing self-management support resources. Depression, weight problems, difficulty exercising, fatigue, poor physician communication, low family support, pain, and financial problems were the most frequently noted barriers to active self-management. The most common barriers to accessing self-management support resources were lack of awareness, physical symptoms, transportation problems, and cost/lack of insurance coverage. Our findings provided initial support for the Homing in on Health approach, since many of the barriers identified may be more amenable to home-based intervention than to centralized, facility-based programs.

The meaning of patient involvement and participation in health care consultations: A taxonomy

A number of trends, pressures and policy shifts can be identified that are promoting greater patient involvement in health care delivery through consultations, treatments and continuing care. However, while the literature is growing fast on different methods of involvement, little attention has been given so far to the role which patients themselves wish to play, nor even of the conceptual meanings behind involvement or participation. This article reviews the current models of involvement in health care delivery as derived from studies of professional views of current and potential practice, prior to examining the empirical evidence from a large-scale qualitative study of the views and preferences of citizens, as patients, members of voluntary groups, or neither. Individual domiciliary interviews were carried out with 44 people recruited from GP practices in northern England. These respondents were then included in a second phase of 34 focus groups in 6 different localities in northern and southern England, of which 22 were with individuals unaffiliated to any voluntary/community groups, 6 related to local voluntary/community groups with specific interests in health or health care, and 6 related to groups without such specific interests. A final set of 12 workshops with the same samples helped to confirm emergent themes. The qualitative data enabled a taxonomy of patient-desired involvement to be derived, which is contrasted with professional-determined levels of involvement identified from the literature. Participation is seen as being co-determined by patients and professionals, and occurring only through the reciprocal relationships of dialogue and shared decision-making. Not everyone wanted to be involved and the extent to which involvement was desired depended on the contexts of type and seriousness of illness, various personal characteristics and patients' relationships with professionals. These levels are seen to provide basic building blocks for a more sophisticated understanding of involvement within and between these contexts for use by professionals, managers, policy-makers and researchers.

Older adult participation in cancer clinical trials: A systematic review of barriers and interventions

Cancer is a disease of aging and, as the world's population ages, the number of older persons with cancer is increasing and will make up a growing share of the oncology population in virtually every country. Despite this, older patients remain vastly underrepresented in research that sets the standards for cancer treatments. Consequently, most of what we know about cancer therapeutics is based on clinical trials conducted in younger, healthier patients, and effective strategies to improve clinical trial participation of older adults with cancer remain sparse. For this systematic review, the authors evaluated published studies regarding barriers to participation and interventions to improve participation of older adults in cancer trials. The quality of the available evidence was low and, despite a literature describing multifaceted barriers, only one intervention study aimed to increase enrollment of older adults in trials. The findings starkly amplify the paucity of evidence-based, effective strategies to improve participation of this underrepresented population in cancer trials. Within these limitations, the authors provide their opinion on how the current cancer research infrastructure must be modified to accommodate the needs of older patients. Several underused solutions are offered to expand clinical trials to include older adults with cancer. However, as currently constructed, these recommendations alone will not solve the evidence gap in geriatric oncology, and efforts are needed to meet older and frail adults where they are by expanding clinical trials designed specifically for this population and leveraging real-world data.

Patients' Perceived Involvement in Care Scale: relationship to attitudes about illness and medical care

This report describes the development of the Perceived Involvement in Care Scale (PICS), a self-report questionnaire for patients, and its relation to primary care patients' attitudes regarding their illnesses and the management of them. The questionnaire was administered to three independent samples of adult primary care patients. Patients' satisfaction and their attitudes regarding their illnesses are evaluated after their medical visits. This instrument is designed to examine three relatively distinct factors: 1) doctor facilitation of patient involvement, 2) level of information exchange, and 3) patient participation in decision making. Of these factors, doctor facilitation and patient decision making were related significantly to patients' satisfaction with care. Doctor facilitation and information exchange related consistently to patients' perceptions of post-visit changes in their understanding, reassurance, perceived control over illness, and expectations for improvement in functioning. The role of physicians in enhancing patient involvement in care and the potential therapeutic benefits of physician facilitative behavior are addressed.

Consumerism, reflexivity and the medical encounter

Much emphasis has been placed recently in sociological, policy and popular discourses on changes in lay people's attitudes towards the medical profession that have been labelled by some as a move towards the embracing of "consumerism". Notions of consumerism tend to assume that lay people act as "rational" actors in the context of the medical encounter. They align with broader sociological concepts of the "reflexive self" as a product of late modernity; that is, the self who acts in a calculated manner to engage in self-improvement and who is sceptical about expert knowledges. To explore the ways that people think and feel about medicine and the medical profession, this article draws on findings from a study involving in-depth interviews with 60 lay people from a wide range of backgrounds living in Sydney. These data suggest that, in their interactions with doctors and other health care workers, lay people may pursue both the ideal-type "consumerist" and the "passive patient" subject position simultaneously or variously, depending on the context. The article concludes that late modernist notions of reflexivity as applied to issues of consumerism fail to recognize the complexity and changeable nature of the desires, emotions and needs that characterize the patient-doctor relationship.

Receiving social support online: implications for health education

Online support groups are expanding as the general public becomes more comfortable using computer-mediated communication technology. These support groups have certain benefits for users who may not be able to or do not have the desire to attend face-to-face sessions. Online support groups also present challenges when compared to traditional face-to-face group communication. Communication difficulties may arise resulting from lack of visual and aural cues found in traditional face-to-face communication. Online support groups have emerged within health care as a result of the need individuals have to know more about health conditions they are confronting. The proliferation of these online communities may provide an opportunity for health educators to reach target populations with specific messages. This paper reviews the development of health-related online support groups, examines research conducted within these communities, compares their utility with traditional support groups and discusses the implications of these groups for health education.

Developing CollaboRATE: a fast and frugal patient-reported measure of shared decision making in clinical encounters

OBJECTIVE

Measuring the process of shared decision making is a challenge, which constitutes a barrier to research and implementation. The aim of the study was to report the development of CollaboRATE, brief patient-reported measure of shared decision making.

METHODS

We used the following stages: (1) item formulation; (2) cognitive interviews; (3) item refinement; and (4) pilot testing of final items. Participants were over 18 years old, recruited from the public areas of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

RESULTS

The key finding of this study is that developing a brief patient-reported measure of shared decision making requires a move away from terms such as 'decisions', 'options' and 'preferences'. Although technically correct, these terms act as barriers. They are often unfamiliar, and they also implicitly assume that patients are willing to take active roles in decision making; whereas patients are often unaware that decisions are required, or have taken place, never mind feel that they could or should have participated in them.

CONCLUSION

These methods have allowed us to develop a brief, patient-reported measure of shared decision making that is highly accessible to intended users.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

The potential strength of the CollaboRATE will be the ability for completion in less than 30s, and across a range of routine settings.

The impact of the format of graphical presentation on health-related knowledge and treatment choices

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the ability of six graph formats to impart knowledge about treatment risks/benefits to low and high numeracy individuals.

METHODS

Participants were randomized to receive numerical information about the risks and benefits of a hypothetical medical treatment in one of six graph formats. Each described the benefits of taking one of two drugs, as well as the risks of experiencing side effects. Main outcome variables were verbatim (specific numerical) and gist (general impression) knowledge. Participants were also asked to rate their perceptions of the graphical format and to choose a treatment.

RESULTS

2412 participants completed the survey. Viewing a pictograph was associated with adequate levels of both types of knowledge, especially for lower numeracy individuals. Viewing tables was associated with a higher likelihood of having adequate verbatim knowledge vs. other formats (p<0.001) but lower likelihood of having adequate gist knowledge (p<0.05). All formats were positively received, but pictograph was trusted by both high and low numeracy respondents. Verbatim and gist knowledge were significantly (p<0.01) associated with making a medically superior treatment choice.

CONCLUSION

Pictographs are the best format for communicating probabilistic information to patients in shared decision making environments, particularly among lower numeracy individuals.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Providers can consider using pictographs to communicate risk and benefit information to patients of different numeracy levels.

Patient involvement in patient safety: what factors influence patient participation and engagement?

BACKGROUND

Patients can play an important role in improving patient safety by becoming actively involved in their health care. However, there is a paucity of empirical data on the extent to which patients take on such a role. In order to encourage patient participation in patient safety we first need to assess the full range of factors that may be implicated in such involvement.

OBJECTIVE

To delineate factors that could affect the participation of the patient in quality and safety issues in their health care.

METHOD

Literature review of patient involvement in health care, drawing from direct evidence (specifically from the safety context) and indirect evidence (extrapolated from treatment decision-making research and the wider patient involvement in health care literature); synthesis and conceptual framework developed, illustrating the known and putative factors that could affect the participation of the patient in safety issues in their health care.

MAIN RESULTS

Five categories of factors emerged that could affect patient involvement in safety: patient-related (e.g. patients' demographic characteristics), illness-related (e.g. illness severity), health-care professional-related (e.g. health care professionals' knowledge and beliefs), health care setting-related (e.g. primary or secondary care), and task-related (e.g. whether the required patient safety behaviour challenges clinicians' clinical abilities).

CONCLUSION

The potential for engaging patients in patient safety is considerable but further research is needed to examine the influences on patient involvement, the limits and the possible dangers. Patients can act as 'safety buffers' during their care but the responsibility for their safety must remain with the health care professionals.

Information giving and decision-making in patients with advanced cancer: a systematic review

Patients with advanced, non-curable cancer face difficult decisions on further treatment, where a small increase in survival time must be balanced against the toxicity of the treatment. If patients want to be involved in these decisions, in keeping with current notions of autonomy and empowerment, they also require to be adequately informed both on the treatments proposed and on their own disease status and prognosis. A systematic review was performed on decision-making and information provision in patients with advanced cancer. Studies of interventions to improve information giving and encourage participation in decision-making were reviewed, including both randomised controlled trials and uncontrolled studies. Almost all patients expressed a desire for full information, but only about two-thirds wished to participate actively in decision-making. Higher educational level, younger age and female sex were predictive of a desire to participate in decision-making. Active decision-making was more common in patients with certain cancers (e.g. breast) than others (e.g. prostate). A number of simple interventions including question prompt sheets, audio-taping of consultations and patient decision aids have been shown to facilitate such involvement.