Consultation techniques using shared decision making for patients with cancer and their families

This article elucidates the nursing consultation techniques in shared decision making (SDM) for patients with cancer and their family members. Descriptive data (207 records) from the nurse-led SDM consultation facility and content analysis were used to extract the nursing consultation techniques. In addition, the order in which these techniques were used to structure the SDM process for patients with cancer was identified. The author extracted eight categories pertaining to nurse consultation techniques for the SDM process: sharing feelings, helping to identify the focus of the consultations, helping to devise a personalized recovery plan, providing information in accordance with the patient's responses, supporting the patient to understand the information provided, ensuring continued treatment and care, strengthening the patient support system, and exploring possibilities on the basis of patient needs. The identified logical order in which these techniques were applied may be useful as a guide to systematic decision-making support.