Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Mar;14 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):20-32.
doi: 10.1111/j.1369-7625.2010.00615.x.

Why values elicitation techniques enable people to make informed decisions about cancer trial participation

Purva Abhyankar  1 , Hilary L Bekker, Barbara A Summers, Galina Velikova
Affiliations

Why values elicitation techniques enable people to make informed decisions about cancer trial participation

Purva Abhyankar et al. Health Expect. 2011 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Decision aids help patients make informed treatment decisions. Values clarification (VC) techniques are part of decision aids that help patients assimilate the information with their personal values. There is little evidence that these techniques contribute to enhanced decision making over and above the provision of good quality information.

Objectives: To assess whether VC techniques are active ingredients in enhancing informed decision making and explain how and why they work.

Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (i) information only, (ii) information plus implicit task, (iii) information plus explicit task. Thirty healthy women from a UK University participated by making a hypothetical choice between taking part in a clinical trial and having the standard treatment for breast cancer. Verbal protocols were elicited by think-aloud method and content analysed to assess informed decision making; a questionnaire was completed after the decision assessing decision preference, perceptions of decisional conflict and ambivalence. Data were analysed using multivariate statistics.

Findings: No participants changed their decision preference as a result of the VC techniques. Women in the explicit VC group evaluated more information in accord with personal values, expressed lower ambivalence, decisional uncertainty and greater clarity of personal values than those in the implicit VC and control groups. Feelings of ambivalence about both options were related to decisional conflict.

Conclusion: Explicit VC techniques are likely to be active ingredients in decision aids. They work by enabling people to deliberate about the decision information in accord with their personal values, which is associated with a better decision experience.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Think‐aloud protocol analysis coding frame: (a) attributes of trial and standard treatment options, (b) categories classifying how the attribute information was processed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Edwards W, Fasolo B. Decision technology. Annual Review of Psychology, 2001; 52: 581–606. - PubMed
    1. Bekker H, Thornton JG, Airey CM et al. Informed decision making: an annotated bibliography and systematic review. Health Technology Assessment, 1999; 3: 1–156. - PubMed
    1. O’Connor AM, Stacey D, Entwistle V et al. Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2005; 2: CD001431. - PubMed
    1. Baron J. Thinking and Deciding, 3rd edn Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
    1. Frisch D, Clemen R. Beyond expected utility theory: rethinking behavioural decision research. Psychological Bulletin, 1994; 116: 46–54. - PubMed

Publication types