Assessment instruments in shared decision-making in medical courses: an integrative review

Abstract:

Introduction:

Shared decision making (SDM) is an approach in which doctors and patients share the best available evidence when faced with the task of making decisions, and where patients are supported to consider options in order to obtain informed preferences. However, as far as can be determined, the principles of SDM are not routinely taught and evaluated in medical school curricula.

Objective:

Identify assessment instruments applied in medical schools for teaching SDM existing in the literature.

Method:

The research question was formulated in April 2021. The search for articles has been carried out since January 2020 on an ongoing basis and served to consolidate the guiding question. The process took place via the CAPES Journal Portal, covering the Medline, Scielo and Lilacs databases. For the controlled vocabulary bases, we used the descriptors: shared decision making, combined with medical education alone. For the keywords, we used medical school, medical student, medical educational models, educational medical assessment measures and medical curriculum.

Result:

The search revealed 1,524 articles and 13 articles were selected as a review corpus. Assessment instruments in patient-centered care are important tools for assessing SDM in medical school curricula, especially the patient-practitioner orientation scale (PPOS). Scales and online questionnaires are presented as alternatives for the assessment of SDM in medical schools. The OPTION scale “observing patient involvement” proved to be a very resourceful tool in the teaching of SDM.

Conclusion:

All 13 SDM studies applied in medical schools were shown to be somewhat effective in assessing the skills, confidence, or attitudes of undergraduate medical students. However, none of these studies performed long-term follow-up assessments. We understand that, especially in Brazil, new research must be carried out, both related to the validation of scales that prove to be internationally effective and in the construction of instruments more contextualized to our reality.

Keywords:
Shared Decision Making; Medical Education; Medical Students; Educational Assessment Measures; Medical Curriculum