To examine the experiences among Dutch and American clinicians on the impact of using encounter patient decision aids (ePDAs) on their clinical practice, and subsequently to formulate recommendations for sustained ePDA use in clinical practice.
Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with clinicians who used 11 different ePDAs (applicable to their specialty) for 3 months after a short training. The verbatim transcribed interviews were coded with thematic analysis by six researchers via ATLAS.ti.
Twenty-five clinicians were interviewed: 16 Dutch medical specialists from four different disciplines (gynaecologists, ear-nose-throat specialists, neurologists and orthopaedic surgeon), 5 American gynaecologists and 4 American gynaecology medical trainees.
The interviews showed that the ePDA potentially impacted the patient–clinician dialogue in several ways. We identified six themes that illustrate this: that is, (1) communication style, for example, structuring the conversation; (2) the patient’s role, for example, encouraging patients to ask more questions; (3) the clinician’s role, for example, prompting clinicians to discuss more information; (4) workflow, for example, familiarity with the ePDA’s content helped to integrate it into practice; (5) shared decision-making (SDM), for example, mixed experiences whether the ePDA contributed to SDM; and (6) content of the ePDA. Recommendations to possibly improve ePDA use based on the clinician’s experiences: (1) add pictorial health information to the ePDA instead of text only and (2) instruct clinicians how to use the ePDA in a flexible (depending on their discipline and setting) and personalised way adapting the ePDA to the patients’ needs (e.g., mark off irrelevant options).