Shared Decision Making or Sharing Information?

RATIONALE: Even given identical information, patients and healthcare professionals may appropriately make conflicting decisions. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Introduce the concept of mutual two-person, as opposed to individual, decision making. METHOD: Present operational definition of shared decision making based on two-person decision theory demonstrate how to identify a shared decision, distinguish between a shared decision and some other commonly used approaches, and report the results of computer simulations that demonstrate the patterns of mutual satisfaction of various decision approached given common information. RESULTS: Shared decision making yields more mutually stable and satisfactory treatment decisions than do other approaches and have the additional advantage of achieving fewer morally questionable outcomes. CONCLUSION: In addition to shared information, shared decisions are superior to those made independently by patients or healthcare professionals.