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Have We Missed the Obvious?

Janice L. Hanson, PhD

Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(13):1368-1370.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A decade ago, we saw little in the medical literature about shared decision making, but that has changed. The last several years have brought a proliferation of literature about shared decision making, participatory decision making, decision aids, and related topics. A recent PubMed search for "shared decision making" resulted in 1891 articles. Although we may be tempted to think that we know all that we need to know about it, the article in this issue of the Archives by Young et al¹ adds a twist to the thinking about this somewhat unsettling topic. These researchers not only found that the physicians in their study engaged in very little shared decision making—as many other researchers have also documented^2-7—they also found that a very minor action by patients stimulated a little more sharing of decisions on the part of physicians. This suggests that both parties influence one . . . [Full Text of this Article]

MYTH 1: EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT SHARED DECISION MAKING IS


MYTH 2: THERE IS ONLY 1 APPROACH TO SHARED DECISION MAKING

MYTH 3: PHYSICIANS ALONE DRIVE SHARED DECISION MAKING

MYTH 4: MOST PHYSICIANS ENGAGE IN SHARED DECISION MAKING—AT LEAST, THEY WOULD IF THEY HAD TIME

MYTH 5: PHYSICIANS DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR SHARED DECISION MAKING

MYTH 6: MOST PATIENTS WOULD RATHER THE PHYSICIAN TELL THEM WHAT TO DO

MYTH 7: PATIENTS WHO DO NOT WANT SHARED DECISION MAKING WANT THEIR PHYSICIANS TO DECIDE FOR THEM

MYTH 8: SHARED DECISION MAKING, INFORMED DECISION MAKING, AND PARTICIPATORY DECISION MAKING ARE THE SAME THING

AREAS OF INQUIRY

AUTHOR INFORMATION

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