Abstract
Costs are an important component of patients' decision making, but a comparatively underemphasized aspect of formal shared decision making. We hypothesized that decision aids also avoid discussion of costs, despite their being tools designed to facilitate shared decision making about patient-centered outcomes. We sought to define the frequency of cost-related information and identify the common modes of presenting cost and cost-related information in the 290 decision aids catalogued in the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute's Decision Aid Library Inventory (DALI) system. We found that 56% (n = 161) of the decision aids mentioned cost in some way, but only 13% (n = 37) gave a specific price or range of prices. We identified 9 different ways in which cost was mentioned. The most common approach was as a "pro" of one of the treatment options (e.g., "you avoid the cost of medication"). Of the 37 decision aids that gave specific prices or ranges of prices for treatment options, only 2 were about surgery decisions despite the fact that surgery decision aids were the most common. Our findings suggest that presentation of cost information in decision aids is highly variable. Evidence-based guidelines should be developed by the International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 412-418 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Medical Decision Making |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 10 2015 |
Keywords
- consumer issues
- cost
- decision aids
- decision making
- ethical issues
- health economics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health Policy