Providing information about options in patient decision aids

Area of Science:

• Health communication
• Patient decision-making
• Evidence-based practice

Background:

• Patients require adequate information to make informed health decisions.
• Patient decision aids (PtDAs) are tools designed to enhance patient understanding and decision-making.
• This review assesses the impact of PtDAs on patient knowledge and feelings of being uninformed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effect of PtDAs on patient knowledge.
• To determine how PtDAs influence patients' feelings of being uninformed.
• To compare the effectiveness of simple versus detailed PtDAs.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
• Included studies compared PtDAs to usual care and compared different levels of information detail within PtDAs.
• Outcomes measured were patient knowledge scores and feeling uninformed scores.

Main Results:

• PtDAs significantly increased patient knowledge scores by an estimated 14 points (out of 100) compared to usual care.
• PtDAs reduced feeling uninformed scores by an estimated 7 points (out of 100).
• More detailed PtDAs showed a small advantage in knowledge (5 points) and reduced feeling uninformed scores (3 points), but this varied.

Conclusions:

• PtDAs enhance patient knowledge and reduce uncertainty compared to standard care.
• While more detailed PtDAs often perform slightly better, the differences are modest and context-dependent.
• The findings support the use of PtDAs to improve patient understanding and decision-making capacity.