Communicating with physicians about medical decisions: a reluctance to disagree.

E ffective patient-physician communication is essential for shared decision making, considered by some to be the “pinnacle” of patientcentered care. Many health care decisions have multiple options and no correct choice. These are called preference-sensitive decisions, and the optimal decision is one that takes into account patient preferences and values in a collaborative process with the physician, known as shared decision making. We sought to describe patients’ intentions to engage in shared decision-making communication behaviors in response to a hypothetical preference-sensitive clinical scenario and to examine the effects of underlying patient beliefs on these behaviors.