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How patients make treatment choices

Nature Clinical Practice Urology volume 5, pages 426–433 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The medical field has undergone a quiet revolution during the past three decades. Patients have been brought into the treatment decision process as never before. Gone are the days when the patient was delivered the diagnosis and simply told how their disorder was to be treated. Rather, widespread use of shared decision making has changed the way that patients and their physicians interact. The development of best clinical practices from concepts of evidence-based medicine has shown that, for many disorders, the various treatment options result in near-equivalent outcomes. More recently, the democratization of medical information by the internet has made the patient a much better informed consumer, and thus a more active participant in his or her own care.

Key Points

  • Patients are anxious to expand their understanding of their disorder

  • The physician is not always the patient's primary source of data: find out what other sources your patients are using to help make their decisions

  • Identify the issues that patients hold as most important when making medical decisions; be aware that personal beliefs may differ based on the disease state

  • Never forget the potent effect of spirituality on decision making

  • The Internet has a myriad of sites devoted to patient decision making: become familiar with those related to your specialty

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Figure 1: Flow diagram describing decisions and events related to a new diagnosis for a patient.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. N Hellenthal is a fifth-year Urology Resident at the University of California, Davis, CA ,

    Nicholas Hellenthal

  2. L Ellison is a Health Services Researcher and Laparoscopic Surgeon at the PenBay Medical Center, Rockport, ME, and at the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, USA.,

    Lars Ellison

Authors
  1. Nicholas Hellenthal
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  2. Lars Ellison
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lars Ellison.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Hellenthal, N., Ellison, L. How patients make treatment choices. Nat Rev Urol 5, 426–433 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpuro1189

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