Abstract P5-15-05: Influence of shared decision making with decision aids on decisional conflict and regret in breast cancer surgery: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Background: Patients with breast cancer usually encounter difficulties in making treatment decisions. Shared decision making (SDM) is a way to minimize decisional conflicts of patients, and patients’ decision aids (PDAs) have been developed to support the implementation of SDM. However, the effect of PDAs in Asia is inconclusive. Therefore, we developed a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of SDM assisted by PDAs on decisional conflict among patients with breast cancer in Taiwan. Methods: This is a two-group, outcome assessor-blind, randomized, controlled trial. A total of 151 patients diagnosed with breast cancer were assigned to the PDAs group or the classic group. Demographic and clinical variables were analyzed to identify the variables influencing the treatment choice. The patients’ decision-making difficulties were evaluated using the 4-item SURE scale during the pre-operative hospitalization, and the decisional conflicts were assessed by the 5-item Decision Regret scale and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) at one month postoperatively.Results: The choice of breast conservation therapy and mastectomy was not significantly different between the PDA and classic groups. Compared with the classic group, patients in PDA group had more depression after making decision (P = 0.029). No significant difference was noted in terms of the total scores in the SURE scale and Decision Regret scale between the groups.Conclusions: Our study revealed that PDA did not assist breast cancer patients in decision making. Clinicians should focus on SDM based on evidence-based medicine with care, and help patients taking their individual preference into consideration. Citation Format: Ka-Wai Tam, Shi-Qian Lin. Influence of shared decision making with decision aids on decisional conflict and regret in breast cancer surgery: A randomized controlled trial [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2021 Dec 7-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-15-05.