ABSTRACT
Health decision making is even more fraught with problems. 'Good' shared decision making can be tricky in practice, for a number of 'good' pragmatic reasons. It takes time, there may be too many decisions to cover, patients may not feel well enough to engage, the available data may be inaccurate or patchy, or integrated practitioners may not know how to go about achieving a shared decision. Effective shared decision making involves recruiting the patient as an ally, and using his or her resources to do the some of the homework. In trying to come to a shared decision, integrated practitioners hope to try to find out as much pertinent information as possible, and in a form that is accessible and understandable, both for their patients and themselves. Patient decision aids are tools designed to help patients make difficult treatment or screening decisions when there is no clinical evidence in favour of one single best option.
