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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Decision Aids for People Facing Health Treatment or Screening Decisions

About this resource:

Systematic Review

Source: The Cochrane Collaborative

Last Reviewed: April 2017

Workgroups: Health Communication and Health Information Technology Workgroup

In this Cochrane systematic review, the Cochrane Collaborative found that using decision aids to make screening or treatment decisions improved people’s knowledge, increased the accuracy of their expectations about the benefits and harms of options, and clarified their values. Decision aids can come in the form of print materials, videos, or web-based tools, and they help people make choices when they have more than 1 option. The researchers also found that people who use decision aids probably take a more active role in decision making and are more likely to talk with their health care provider about their decision.

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Objectives related to this resource (1)

Increase the proportion of adults whose health care providers involved them in decisions as much as they wanted — HC/HIT‑03
Little or no detectable change

Suggested Citation

1.

Stacey, D., Légaré, F., Lewis, K., Barry, M.J., Bennett, C.L., Eden, K.B., Holmes‐Rovner, M., Llewellyn‐Thomas, H., Lyddiatt, A., Thomson, R. & Trevena, L. (2017). Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2017 (4). DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001431.pub5.