Nothing About Me Without Me: Shared Decision-Making in Chronic Hepatitis B

Abstract

This GSK-sponsored symposium took place at the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) International Liver Congress (ILC) on 23rd June 2022 in London, UK. The symposium was developed in collaboration with external experts, including people directly affected by hepatitis B infection, to help highlight priorities for communications between patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) to ensure good patient outcomes. The panel members were Mark Douglas, a virologist at Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Sydney, Australia; Ahmed Elsharkawy, a consultant transplant hepatologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK; Catherine Freeland, Public Health Programme Director at the Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA; and Natalia Sadowska, who has chronic hepatitis B (CHB), and is a member of the GSK patient council. The symposium was a conversation between the panel members to help better understand the key patient communication priorities for people with CHB when interacting with their HCPs. Panel members discussed the disconnect between patients and their HCPs in information sharing and treatment decision-making. The symposium also explored the patient journey to diagnosis, patients’ fear of transmitting the virus to others, and the management of CHB in the current therapeutic landscape and the future as a functional cure becomes possible.