Overcoming barriers to cancer-helpline professionals providing decision support for callers: an implementation study.

Purpose/objectives: To evaluate the effect of an intervention on healthcare professionals' perceptions of barriers influencing their provision of decision support for callers facing cancer-related decisions.

Design: A pre- and post-test study guided by the Ottawa Model of Research Use.

Setting: Australian statewide cancer call center that provides public access to information and supportive cancer services.

Health preferences and decision-making needs of disadvantaged women.

Aim: This paper reports the results of a survey of disadvantaged women in La Pintana, a municipality of Santiago, Chile, to determine their health decision-making needs.

Background: Research is needed as there is no published community-based study focusing specifically on health decision-making needs of disadvantaged women.

Methods: From April to November 1999, we conducted a cross-sectional interview survey of women registered at primary healthcare centres in La Pintana, an impoverished municipality of Santiago, Chile.

Reduction of inequalities in health: assessing evidence-based tools.

Background: The reduction of health inequalities is a focus of many national and international health organisations. The need for pragmatic evidence-based approaches has led to the development of a number of evidence-based equity initiatives. This paper describes a new program that focuses upon evidence- based tools, which are useful for policy initiatives that reduce inequities.

Decision support: helping patients and families to find a balance at the end of life.

Terminally ill patients and their families face many decisions at the end of life that can sometimes be overwhelming. Nurses play a key role in providing decision support so that patients and their families can make timely decisions about their health care that reflect their individual needs and circumstances. The Ottawa Decision Support Framework can help nurses to assess patients' decision-making needs, provide tailored decision support and evaluate the effect of their interventions.

Factors associated with the difference in score between women's and doctors' decisional conflict about hormone therapy: a multilevel regression analysis.

Objective: To explore factors associated with the difference in score between women's and doctors' decisional conflict about hormone therapy (HT).

Design: Secondary analysis.

Setting And Participants: family doctors were randomized to prepare women for counselling about HT using either a decision aid or a pamphlet.

Validation of a tool to assess health practitioners' decision support and communication skills.

As patients become more involved in decisions affecting their health, it is important to monitor and improve the support clinicians provide to facilitate shared decision making. The Decision Support Analysis Tool (DSAT) was developed as a research tool to evaluate practitioners' use of decision support and related communication skills during a clinical encounter. The DSAT, consisting of six categories of decision support skills and four categories of communication skills, was tested with 34 actual transcripts of patient-physician dialogue.

The effect of decision aids on the agreement between women's and physicians' decisional conflict about hormone replacement therapy.

The aim of this secondary analysis was to compare the effects of a tailored decision aid (DA) with those of a pamphlet on the agreement between women's and physicians' decisional conflict about hormone replacement therapy (HRT). A total of 40 physicians and 184 women provided data. The agreement between women's and physicians' decisional conflict scores was measured using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

An evidence-based approach to managing women's decisional conflict.

Women who face difficult health decisions are likely to experience decisional conflict. To date, women have been supported in their decision making through informal counseling and client education. The Ottawa Decision Support Framework guides practitioners in assessing decision-making needs in clinical practice, providing support for client decision making, and evaluating the effectiveness of their interventions.