Decision aids

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Decision aids are interventions or tools designed to facilitate shared decision making and patient participation in health care decisions.

Contents

Decision support interventions help people think about choices they face; they describe where and why choice exists; and they provide information about options, including, where reasonable, the option of taking no action. [1] These interventions aim to help people to deliberate, independently or in collaboration with others, about options by considering relevant attributes to help them forecast how they might feel about short, intermediate and long-term outcomes which have relevant consequences. [1] Decision aids can be of any type but are most commonly pamphlets, videos, or web-based tools. [2] [ needs update ] Decision aids support the process of constructing preferences and eventual decision making, appropriate to their individual situation. [1]

Usage

There are numerous ways in which decision aids can be used. [1] They can be brief enough to be used during a clinical encounter or they can have sufficient content to be used before or after clinical encounters. Although decision aids have been available since the early 1980s, evidence suggests that they are not well integrated into routine practice. [3]

Efficacy

Decision aids provide people with a greater understanding of their medical treatment options and empower people to participate in their own health decision making. [4] [ needs update ] Supplementing patient-education consultations with decision tools improves people's knowledge about the risks and benefits of a procedure or medication and may help them make decisions that are in line with their personal values. [4]

No adverse effects have been identified. [4]

It is not clear what type of decision aid for patients is cost-effective. [4] It is also not clear what impact the use of clinical decision aid systems that assist people who face healthcare treatments or screening decisions may have on the overall healthcare system. [4] It is not known if decision aids are helpful for people who are not strong readers. [4]

Producers

There are also many active research groups in the field, including the University of Ottawa, Dartmouth College, Cardiff University and Hamburg; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality uses the IPDAS standards [5] to produce its decision aids. [6]

While researchers and health care facilities have different approaches to producing these decision aids, engaging patients in the process appears to have benefits. Results of a systematic review of the literature found that involving users in the design and development of these tools, from the needs assessment, through reviewing the content during development, and into prototyping, piloting, and usability testing, benefits the overall process. [7]

Standards

There has been an increase in use of decision support and a global interest in developing these interventions among both for-profit and not-for-profit organisations. [8] It is therefore essential to have internationally accepted standards to assess the quality of their development, process, content, potential bias and method of testing and evaluation. The International Patient Decision Aids Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration has published a checklist, [9] and, more recently, an assessment instrument (IPDAS) [10] to evaluate the quality of decision support interventions. In its November 2013 issue, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making published a supplement that described the 10-year evolution of the IPDAS Collaboration and 12 core dimensions for assessing the quality of patient decision aids. [11] While specifying minimum standards for patient decision support interventions is a feasible development, it is unclear whether the minimum standards can be applied to interventions designed for use within clinical encounters and to those that target screening and diagnostic tests. [12]

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health informatics</span> Computational approaches to health care

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Systematic review</span> Comprehensive review of research literature using systematic methods

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glyn Elwyn</span> Physician-researcher and professor

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Elwyn G, Frosch D, Volandes A, Edwards A, Montori V (2009). "Investing in deliberation: defining and developing decision support interventions for people facing difficult health decisions". White Paper Series. Gaithersberg, Maryland, USA: John M Eisenberg Center for Clinical Decisions and Communication. Archived from the original on 2016-09-23.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. ↑ Stacey, Dawn; Légaré, France; Lewis, Krystina; Barry, Michael J; Bennett, Carol L; Eden, Karen B; Holmes-Rovner, Margaret; Llewellyn-Thomas, Hilary; Lyddiatt, Anne (2017-04-12). Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group (ed.). "Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions". Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2017 (4): CD001431. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD001431.pub5. PMC   6478132 . PMID   28402085.
  3. ↑ Gravel K, Légaré F, Graham ID (2006). "Barriers and facilitators to implementing shared decision-making in clinical practice: a systematic review of health professionals' perceptions". Implement Sci. 1: 16. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-1-16 . PMC   1586024 . PMID   16899124.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stacey, Dawn; Légaré, France; Lewis, Krystina; Barry, Michael J.; Bennett, Carol L.; Eden, Karen B.; Holmes-Rovner, Margaret; Llewellyn-Thomas, Hilary; Lyddiatt, Anne (2017). "Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2017 (4): CD001431. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD001431.pub5. ISSN   1469-493X. PMC   6478132 . PMID   28402085.
  5. ↑ "International Patient Decision Aids Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration". ipdas.ohri.ca. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  6. ↑ "Patient Decision Aids | AHRQ Effective Health Care Program". www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov. Archived from the original on 2016-09-18. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  7. ↑ Vaisson, Gratianne; Provencher, Thierry; Dugas, Michèle; Trottier, Marie-Ève; Chipenda Dansokho, Selma; Colquhoun, Heather; Fagerlin, Angela; Giguere, Anik M. C.; Hakim, Hina; Haslett, Lynne; Hoffman, Aubri S. (2021). "User Involvement in the Design and Development of Patient Decision Aids and Other Personal Health Tools: A Systematic Review". Medical Decision Making. 41 (3): 261–274. doi: 10.1177/0272989X20984134 . ISSN   0272-989X. PMID   33655791.
  8. ↑ O'Connor AM, Wennberg JE, Legare F, et al. (2007). "Toward the 'tipping point': decision aids and informed patient choice". Health Aff (Millwood). 26 (3): 716–25. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.26.3.716. PMID   17485749.
  9. ↑ Elwyn G, O'Connor A, Stacey D, et al. (August 2006). "Developing a quality criteria framework for patient decision aids: online international Delphi consensus process". BMJ. 333 (7565): 417–0. doi:10.1136/bmj.38926.629329.AE. PMC   1553508 . PMID   16908462.
  10. ↑ Elwyn G, O'Connor AM, Bennett C, et al. (2009). "Assessing the quality of decision support technologies using the International Patient Decision Aid Standards instrument (IPDASi)". PLOS ONE. 4 (3): e4705. Bibcode:2009PLoSO...4.4705E. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004705 . PMC   2649534 . PMID   19259269.
  11. ↑ "BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making". BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  12. ↑ Joseph-Williams, Natalie; Newcombe, Robert; Politi, Mary; Durand, Marie-Anne; Sivell, Stephanie; Stacey, Dawn; O'Connor, Annette; Volk, Robert J.; Edwards, Adrian (2014-08-01). "Toward Minimum Standards for Certifying Patient Decision Aids: A Modified Delphi Consensus Process". Medical Decision Making. 34 (6): 699–710. doi:10.1177/0272989X13501721. ISSN   1552-681X. PMID   23963501. S2CID   3815932.
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