The use of patients' preferences in family practice

The use of patients' preferences enables physician and patient to share responsibility for decision making. The use of preferences is especially appropriate when there is diagnostic uncertainty or when several alternative management strategies are available. When preferences are used, clinicians are likely to become sensitive to details of individual patients' lives that affect their illnesses and their responses to illnesses. Patient preferences may be influenced by how information is presented to them and by recent experiences in their own lives or in the lives of someone close to them. For effective decision making to occur, both physician and patient should be comfortable with the amount of decision-making responsibility given to each.