RCT Regarding SDM Online Training and Face-to-face SDM Training

Plain-language summary

Cancer patients often report that they are not included in important treatment decisions. Numerous studies have shown that a training concerning Shared Decision Making (SDM) for physicians can improve this situation. This does not only lead to a better quality of the doctor-patient interaction, but may have a positive long term impact on treatment adherence, the psychological well-being and the coping abilities of the patients. However, previous experience regarding the implementation of SDM training programs show that it is difficult to recruit physicians for an external SDM group training due to the extensive workload of the physicians. In light of the available evidence on the effectiveness of SDM training and the low motivation by oncologists for traditional SDM group training, this study aims to develop and evaluate a brief SDM intervention. This intervention is disseminated in two different ways which both might be attractive for oncologists. On the one hand an individual face-to-face context-based SDM training is designed and conducted by a trainer at the workplace of the participating oncologists. On the other hand a web-based SDM online training is developed. Both SDM interventions are developed on the basis of an SDM manual evaluated in previous studies. This study therefore aims to examine the effectiveness of different disseminations strategies (individualized face-to-face context-based SDM individual training vs. web-based SDM online training) compared to a control group without any training. It will be analyzed which improvements in medical SDM competence can be accomplished by the different SDM trainings. Further the effects of the training on SDM knowledge, quality of the doctor-patient interaction and SDM self-efficacy expectation will be evaluated.

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