A prospective study of shared decision-making in brain tumor surgery

Purpose Shared decision-making (SDM) is a key tenet of personalized care and is becoming an essential component of informed consent in an increasing number of countries. The aim of this study is to analyze patient and healthcare staff satisfaction with the SDM process before and after SDM was officially introduced as the standard of care. Decision grids are important tools in the SDM process, and we developed them for three different types of intracranial tumors.

Methods This prospective study was conducted in a high-volume neuro-oncological center on all consecutive eligible patients undergoing consideration of treatment for intracranial glioma and metastases. Twenty-two patients participated before and 74 after the introduction of SDM. Six and 5 staff members respectively participated in the analysis before and after team training and the introduction of SDM. The main outcome was patient and healthcare staff satisfaction with the SDM process.

Results Patients reported high satisfaction with the SDM process before (mean CollaboRATE score 26 of 27 points) and after (mean CollaboRATE score 26.3 of 27 points, p = 0.23) the introduction of SDM. Interestingly, staff attitude toward SDM improved significantly from 61.68 before to 90.95% after the introduction of SDM (p-value < 0.001). Decision grids that were developed for three different types of intracranial tumors are presented.

Conclusions Team training in SDM and the introduction of techniques into daily practice can increase staff satisfaction with the SDM process. High levels of patient satisfaction were observed before, with a non-significant increase after the introduction of SDM. Decision grids are an important tool to facilitate the conveyance and understanding of complex information and to achieve SDM in daily clinical practice.