BACKGROUND As our population ages, the prevalence of dementia is rising. Given the complex care needs that accompany dementia, general practitioners (GPs) will be increasingly called upon to address a range of challenging clinical issues. OBJECTIVE This article offers an introduction to the use of decision aids by GPs when caring for patients with dementia (or their carers). In addition, obst...

Objectives Patient decision aids can be used to support pregnant women engaging in shared decisions, but little is known about their effects in obstetrics. The authors aimed to evaluate the effects of patient decision aids designed for pregnant women on clinical and psychosocial outcomes. Design Systematic review. Data on all outcomes were extracted and summarised. All studies were critically ...

       Background: As part of the process of developing a decision aid for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) according to the Ottawa Decision Support Framework, we were interested in the level of ‘decisional conflict’ of hand surgeons and patients with CTS. This study addresses the null hypothesis that there is no difference between surgeon and patient decisional conflict with respect to test and tr...

For medical decisions with more than one reasonable option, patient participation in decision making is often necessary to optimally match management decisions with patient preferences. Health decision aids are designed to facilitate shared decision making by helping patients and their physicians choose among reasonable clinical options. Although these aids vary in content, common denominators ...

CONTEXT Shared decision-making programs, or patient decision aids, have been developed for difficult decisions in which patients need to consider benefits versus risks. PRACTICE PATTERN EXAMINED Decision aids currently used in practice in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. DATA SOURCES Published studies of patients faced with decisions about hormone therapy, prenatal testing, lung cancer treatments, ...

BACKGROUND Patient information and education, such as decision aids, are gradually moving toward online, computer-based environments. Considerable research has been conducted to guide content and presentation of decision aids. However, given the relatively new shift to computer-based support, little attention has been given to how multimedia and interactivity can improve upon paper-based decisi...