What Does Shared Decision Making Mean for Prostate Screening?
Whether men should be routinely screened for prostate cancer using PSA testing is a topic that’s often debated. The current thinking is that men should make a decision after weighing the pros and cons about screening. (Read here, here and here for more.) But men may not always get that information when making their decision, according to a study in today’s Archives of Internal Medicine. In a survey of 375 men who had discussed or undergone PSA screening in the previous two years, researchers found that while nearly 70% of men had a discussion with their health-care providers before they were screened, most addressed only the benefits, not the cons. Only about half of the men surveyed were able to correctly answer any of the three basic questions about PSA screening. The study raises the question of whether patients facing prostate screening and their health-care professionals are engaging in shared decision making (called SDM by the researchers), and what such a collaboration should lo
