The Impact of Shared Decision-Making on the Quality of Decision Making in Aortic Dissection: A before-and-after Comparison Study.

BACKGROUND

Complex surgical plans and consideration of risks and benefits often cause decisional conflicts for decision-makers in aortic dissection (AD) surgery, resulting in decision delay. Shared decision-making (SDM) improves decision readiness and reduces decisional conflicts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of SDM on decision quality in AD.

METHODS

One hundred and sixty AD decision-makers were divided into two groups: control (n = 80) and intervention (n = 80). The surgical plan for the intervention group was determined using patient decision aids. The primary outcome was decisional conflict. Secondary outcomes included decision preparation, decision satisfaction, surgical method, postoperative complications, actual participation role, and duration of consultation. The data were analyzed with SPSS 26.0 (IBM Corp., Chicago, IL, USA). 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

RESULTS

The decisional conflict score was significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group ( 0.001). The decision preparation and decision satisfaction scores in the intervention group were significantly higher than those in the control group ( 0.001). There were more SDM decision-makers in the intervention group (16 [20%] vs. 42 [52.50%]). There was no statistical significance in the choice of surgical, postoperative complications, duration of consultation, and hospital and post-operative intensive care unit stay time ( = 0.267, = 0.130, = 0.070, = 0.397, = 0.421, respectively). Income, education level, and residence were the influencing factors of decision-making conflict.

CONCLUSIONS

SDM can reduce decisional conflict, improve decision preparation and satisfaction, and help decision-makers actively participate in the medical management of patients with AD without affecting the medical outcome.