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Barriers to eliciting patient goals and values in shared decision‐making breast cancer surgery consultations: An ethnographic and interview study
Author(s) -
Gruß Inga,
McMullen Carmit K.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
psycho‐oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.41
H-Index - 137
eISSN - 1099-1611
pISSN - 1057-9249
DOI - 10.1002/pon.5212
Subject(s) - conversation , prioritization , multidisciplinary approach , focus group , qualitative research , breast cancer , information sharing , medicine , psychology , medical education , decision aids , nursing , cancer , computer science , management science , alternative medicine , pathology , social science , communication , sociology , world wide web , economics , business , marketing
Objective Previous research has demonstrated the importance of eliciting patients' goals and values during shared decision‐making (SDM), but this does not occur in most SDM conversations. Understanding challenges to eliciting patients' goals and values is crucial. This study assessed how clinicians balanced sharing medical information and considering patients' goals and values during breast cancer surgery consultation in an integrated health care system. Methods We conducted interviews with clinicians (n = 6) and patients (n = 11) and conducted naturalistic, ethnographic observations of eight surgical consultations in a multidisciplinary breast cancer clinic. We analyzed the data following the template method using the qualitative software NVivo 10. Results Clinicians prioritized sharing medical information. We identified four patient factors necessary to integrate patients' values and goals into the conversation in addition to sharing medical information: ability to process large quantities of information quickly, willingness to embrace swift decision‐making, ability to quickly formulate one's values, and prioritization of surgical choice as the goal of the conversation. Conclusions We found that SDM implementation results in practices that emphasize information and choice, with less focus on patient goals and values. More research is needed to explore factors that may encourage the elicitation of patients' goals and values.