Deciding on breast cancer treatment: a description of decision behavior

The purposes of this study were to describe the unaided decision-making process of women facing treatment for early stage breast cancer and to provide the empirical grounding to develop a conceptual framework for more structured research. A convenience sample of 48 women completed an open-ended interview while they were making a decision. A qualitative analysis of these interviews identified five empirical indicators of decision behavior: (a) perceived salience of alternatives, (b) decision conflict, (c) information seeking, (d) risk awareness, and (e) deliberation. The configurations of these indicators discriminated the decision maker into one of three empirically derived groups. In order of complexity, these are termed Deferrer, Delayer, and Deliberator.