Patient readiness for shared decision making about treatment: Conceptualisation and development of the Ready^SDM

Shared decision making (SDM) requires an active role of both clinicians and patients. We aimed to conceptualise patient readiness for SDM about treatment, and to develop a patient questionnaire to assess readiness.

We used the results of a scoping review and a qualitative study to inform the patient readiness construct. We conducted five additional rounds of data collection to finalise the construct definition and develop the Patient Readiness for SDM Questionnaire (Ready^SDM ) in an oncological setting: (1) longitudinal interviews with patients with cancer during and after a treatment decision-making process; (2) a pilot study among experts, clinicians, and patients for feedback on the concept and items; (3) a field test among (former) patients with cancer to test item format and content validity, and to reduce the number of items; (4) cognitive interviews with people with low literacy to test the comprehensibility of the questionnaire; and (5) a field test among (former) patients who faced a cancer treatment decision in the last year, to test the content validity of the final version of the questionnaire.

A total of 251 people participated in the various rounds of data collection. We identified eight elements of patient readiness for SDM about treatment: (1) understanding of and attitude towards SDM; (2) information skills; (3) skills in communicating and claiming space; (4) self-awareness; (5) consideration skills; (6) self-efficacy; (7) emotional distress; and (8) experienced time. We developed the 20-item Ready^SDM to retrospectively measure these elements in an oncological setting.

We conducted a thorough procedure to conceptualise patient readiness and to develop the Ready^SDM . The questionnaire aims to provide novel insights into ways to enhance SDM in daily practice.

Multiple people with lived experience were involved in various phases of the study. They were asked for input on the study design, the conceptualisation of readiness, and the development of the questionnaire.