Education and role modelling for clinical decisions with female cancer patients.
BACKGROUND
Patients vary widely in their preferences and capacity for participating in treatment decision-making. There are few interventions targeting patient understanding of how doctors make decisions and shared decision-making. This randomized trial investigates the effects of providing cancer patients with a package designed to facilitate shared decision-making prior to seeing their oncologist.


METHODS
Sixty-five female cancer patients were randomized to receive either the package (booklet and 15-min video) or a booklet on living with cancer, before their initial consultation. Participants completed questionnaires prior to the intervention, immediately after the oncology consultation, and 2 weeks and 6 months later. The first consultation with the oncologist was audio-taped and transcribed.


RESULTS
Patients receiving the package were more likely than controls to declare their information and treatment preferences in the consultation, and their perspectives on the costs, side-effects and benefits of treatment. Doctors introduced considerably more new themes in the consultations with intervention subjects than they did with controls; no other differences in doctor behaviour were noted.


CONCLUSIONS
This short intervention successfully shifted patient and doctor behaviour closer to the shared decision-making model, although it did not alter patients' preferences for information or involvement.
Brown
Rhonda F
RF
Medical Psychology Research Unit, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Butow
Phyllis N
PN
Sharrock
Merin Anne
MA
Henman
Michael
M
Boyle
Fran
F
Goldstein
David
D
Tattersall
Martin H N
MH
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013664:Teaching Materials