Constancy of subjective assessments and the stability of treatment preferences in team decision making

Subjective probabilities and values were assessed with 34 subjects representing different medical specialties, in the context of a team decision-making problem as part of a single case study presentation. Treatment preferences were also assessed prior to and following the decision analysis, and as calculated by the expected values of the treatment options. The results indicated that subjective value assessments were relatively constant and uniformly held among participants, but that probability assessments varied widely. In this particular clinical application, rather than reconciling differences, the probability assessments of the specialists representing a particular modality are generally used, and the team decision analysis represents a composite of differently held assessments. The study also showed that participants were likely to change their treatment preferences after going through the formal decision analysis. This may reflect the use of speech tapes to communicate treatment outcomes or that the process itself had a bearing on the respondents' own treatment preferences.