Improving public health information for patients: shared decision making and influenza vaccination.

Abstract

Shared decision making (SDM) is a process that every health professional should apply when there is scientific uncertainty between several care strategies. Papers have established quality criteria and tools to help in SDM.1 In 2012, the International Patient Decision Aids Standards (IPDAS) updated its quality criteria at an international expert consensus conference. The changes were published in a supplement in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making .2 In this field, patients and doctors expect SDM to be done from the best available research evidence.3 IPDAS recommends that shared decision tools are comprehensive and up-to-date summaries of scientific data, and that the evidence itself should be subject to critical appraisal.3 In this context, we analysed annual influenza vaccination in the over-65s. This is a typical example of where shared medical decision making is of major importance, because it deals with prevention in an asymptomatic population. The aim is to discuss the situation with the patient so that they can make their own decision, not only from objective information given by the doctor, but also from their own subjective viewpoint. With regards to influenza vaccination in the over-65s, scientific facts on the benefits are uncertain and communication of facts has caused controversy.4,5 Thus far, no randomised controlled trial (RCT) has rigorously analysed the clinical efficacy of the vaccine in the over-65s on clinically pertinent outcomes, such as mortality or hospitalisation. Our aim was to analyse the content of the documents made available on the web by French and British health authorities, on the Assurance Maladie6 and NHS Choices …