Through the Eyes of Patients: The Effect of Training General Practitioners and Nurses on Perceived Shared Decision-Making Support

Purpose: To examine the effects of training general practitioners and nurses in shared decision-making (SDM) support as perceived by cancer patients and survivors. Design: An innovative, experimental design was adopted that included analogue patients (APs), that is, people who have or have had cancer and who imagine themselves in the position of the actor-patient presented in a video. Each AP assessed a video-recorded simulated consultation of a health care professional (HCP) conducted before or after an SDM support training program. The primary outcome was the APs’ perceived SDM support with 13 self-developed items reflecting the perceived patient benefit of SDM support as well as the perceived HCP support behavior. Secondary outcomes included an overall rating of SDM support, AP-reported extent of SDM (CollaboRATE), satisfaction with the communication (Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire), conversation appreciation and helpfulness, as well as decision-making satisfaction and confidence (visual analog scale, 0–100). In addition, patient and HCP characteristics associated with AP-perceived SDM support were examined. Results: APs (n = 131) did not significantly differentiate trained from untrained HCPs in their perceptions of SDM support nor in secondary outcomes. Agreement between APs’ perceptions was poor. The higher the perceived comparability of the consultation with APs’ previous personal experiences, the higher their rating of SDM support. Limitations: We used a nonvalidated primary outcome and an innovative study design that should be tested in future work. Conclusions: Despite the limitations of the study design, the training seemed to not affect cancer patients’ and survivors’ perceived SDM support. Implications: The clinical relevance of the training on SDM support needs to be established. The variation in APs’ assessments suggests patients differ in their perception of SDM support, stressing the importance of patient-tailored SDM support. Cancer patients and survivors did not significantly differentiate trained from untrained HCPs when evaluating SDM support, and agreement between their perceptions was poor. The clinical relevance of training GPs and nurses in SDM support needs to be established. Patient-tailored SDM support may be recommended, given the variation in APs’ assessments and their possible diverging perceptions of SDM support. This innovative study design (having patients watch and assess videos of simulated consultations made in the context of training evaluation) needs to be further developed.