Shared decision-making during surgical thyroid consultation

INTRODUCTION. Shared decision-making (SDM) enables individually tailored treatment plans. This survey explored patients’ and surgeons’ perceptions of SDM in consultations on thyroid nodules. Furthermore, we aimed to explore possible discrepancies between the groups, identify factors influencing patients’ perceived levels of SDM and evaluate decisional regret. METHODS. A prospective survey study was conducted among patients attending surgical consultations for thyroid nodules. Patients and surgeons completed SDM questionnaires to measure perceived levels of SDM. Six-month decisional regret was assessed by the Decisional Regret Scale. RESULTS. The median SDM scores were 86.7 (interquartile range (IQR) = 20) and 80.0 (IQR = 28.9) for patients and doctors, respectively, showing a significant mean difference of 7.9 (95% confidence interval: 4.0-11.8; p < 0.001) with higher scores for patients than surgeons. A high SDM score was positively associated with preliminary examinations (p = 0.04) but not with other consultation types or sociodemographic factors (SDF). A total of 12.2% of patients showed decisional regret. Regret was not correlated with the patient’s SDM score (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient = −0.06; p = 0.6). CONCLUSIONS. Patients and surgeons reported high levels of perceived SDM. Perceived levels of SDM and decisional regret were not associated with SDF, except for the consultation type. Factors affecting the perceived SDM level remain largely unknown and could be identified by adding objective SDM measures in future studies. FUNDING. None. TRIAL REGISTRATION. Not relevant.