Patient-centered decision making and health care outcomes: an observational study.

Background: Patient-centered decision making (PCDM) is the process of identifying clinically relevant, patient-specific circumstances and behaviors to formulate a contextually appropriate care plan.

Objective: To ascertain whether encounters in which PCDM occurs are followed by improved health care outcomes compared with encounters where there is inattention to patient context.

Design: Patients surreptitiously audio-recorded encounters with their physicians.

Prevalence of secondary causes of bone loss among breast cancer patients with osteopenia and osteoporosis.

Purpose: To determine the prevalence of secondary causes of bone loss among patients with breast cancer with osteopenia and osteoporosis.

Patients And Methods: All women referred to a bone health clinic over a 6-year period for bone evaluation were included in this retrospective study and stratified based on presence or absence of a breast cancer history. The prevalence of secondary causes of bone loss in the two groups was compared.