Shared Decision Making and Social Prescribing in General Practitioner Consultations: An Observational Study

Shared decision making (SDM) is a co-operative process where general practitioners (GPs) and patients share the best available evidence when facing a healthcare decision. Social prescribing (SP) is a method of encouraging patients to improve their own well-being through community-based treatments and support. With the rise of virtual care, it is important to examine how GP consultations involving SP and SDM can be facilitated in the virtual care setting. A few studies have compared these concepts or how they can be supported using virtual care.

This paper assesses the extent of SDM observed between GPs and patients during consultations regarding SP. In addition, it investigates the potential for this process to be supported with virtual care.

Retrospective observational study of recorded GP consultations in southwest England. Consultation transcripts were analysed using the OPTION¹² scale (Observing Patient Involvement in Decision Making).

The study included 65 consultations involving social prescription by 10 GPs. The mean total OPTION¹² score for all consultations was 47.90 (on a 100-point scale, where 0 stands for the lowest level of SDM and 100 for the highest). GPs scored highest in item 1 (identifying a relevant problem) and lowest in item 4 (explaining pros and cons). For physical health consultations (n = 38), the mean OPTION¹² score was 45.83. For mental health consultations (n = 27), the mean OPTION¹² score was slightly higher at 50.10.

SDM, as measured by the OPTION score, was observed to have no difference between physical and mental health GP consultations that included SP. Further research is required to explore the role of virtual care in facilitating SDM between GPs and patients in the SP context.