title: Shared decision making: prostate cancer patients' appraisal of treatment alternatives and oncologists' eliciting and responding behavior, an explorative study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess clinicians' use of shared decision making (SDM) skills, enabling patient treatment evaluations (appraisals); and varieties of patient appraisals and clinicians' preceding and following utterances.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two coders rated videotaped initial visits of 25 early-stage prostate cancer patients to their radiation oncologist. SDM skills were assessed using the Decision Analysis System for Oncology (DAS-O); appraisals and clinicians' utterances were labeled using qualitative methodology.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Clinicians offered a treatment choice to 10 patients. They informed 15/25 about pros and 20/25 about cons of options. Patients expressed 67 appraisals (median/visit=2; range, 0-12). Half of appraisals were favorable and one-fourth was unfavorable toward treatment options. One-fifth referred to explicit tradeoffs. One-third of appraisals followed clinician requests; 58% followed clinician information. Clinicians approved almost half of appraisals. They contested, ignored or highlighted a minority.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Clinicians infrequently offered patients a choice or explored appraisals. Most appraisals supported rather than challenged treatment options. Clinicians most often legitimized appraisals, thereby helping patients to feel good about the decision. Exploring appraisals may help patients in forming more stable preferences, thus benefiting patients in the long run.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Clinicians should request patient appraisals and ascertain whether these seem well-informed before making treatment recommendations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Decision Making, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands. a.h.pieterse@lumc.nl
authors.forename: Arwen H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Pieterse
authors.forename: Inge
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Henselmans
authors.forename: Hanneke C J M
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: de Haes
authors.forename: Caro C E
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Koning
authors.forename: Elisabeth D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Geijsen
authors.forename: Ellen M A
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Smets
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003657:Decision Making; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008495:Medical Oncology; D008875:Middle Aged; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010358:Patient Participation; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013637:Tape Recording