Patient Decision Aids for Prenatal Genetic Testing: Probability, Embodiment, and Problematic Integration.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical communication
• Health communication theory
• Patient decision-making

Background:

• Patient decision aids (PDAs) aim to enhance patient involvement in healthcare choices.
• Scholarly work calls for applying communication theory to PDA development and use.
• Gateway documents are a key genre of PDAs found on noncommercial health information websites.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the balance of information in PDAs for prenatal genetic testing.
• To apply problematic integration theory to understand balance in PDAs.
• To identify communication opportunities within PDAs for improved patient engagement.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of four gateway PDAs for prenatal genetic testing.
• Application of problematic integration theory to assess PDA content.
• Examination of discussions on benefits, disadvantages, provider knowledge, and patient experiences.

Main Results:

• PDAs analyzed demonstrated an overemphasis on statistical risk.
• Patient embodied knowledge and lived experiences were insufficiently integrated.
• The analyzed PDAs were found to be imbalanced, limiting comprehensive decision support.

Conclusions:

• Current PDAs for prenatal genetic testing may not fully support shared decision-making.
• Integrating patient embodied knowledge alongside statistical data is crucial for balanced PDAs.
• This study provides a theoretical framework for analyzing PDAs in biomedical communication.