Decision aids for patients facing health treatment decisions in Spain: preliminary results

This study presents ongoing research aimed at understanding the suitability and impact of various decision aids (DAs) on patients with different chronic conditions in the Spanish National Health System.

A three-phase process was employed to develop and evaluate DAs for patients with hip or knee osteoarthritis (OA), benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and depression, including: (1) systematic reviews on the effectiveness of shared decision making (SDM) interventions (including DAs); (2) the development of DAs; (3) a pilot study assessing the DAs.

Systematic reviews carried out highlight that there are few studies assessing the effectiveness of DAs for OA, BPH, and depression. The development of DAs and their assessment currently differs for each medical condition. The DAs assessed for OA and BHP are well accepted. In a pilot study with OA patients, the DA produced a significant improvement in the decisional conflict "informed" subscale.

Research on SDM and DAs for different chronic conditions is at a very early stage in Spain. It is not possible to draw any definite conclusions about the effectiveness of DAs for clinical practice.

It is necessary to conduct more high quality studies to evaluate the effects of DAs in the Spanish context.