Problem with patient decision aids

Although patient decision aids hold promise for improving healthcare, there are fundamental issues with patient decision aids that need to be addressed before further progress can be made. The problems with patient decision aids are:

(1) Guidelines for developing patient decision aids may not be sufficient to ensure developers select the best available evidence and present it appropriately;

(2) Biased presentation of low-certainty evidence is common and

(3) Biased presentation of low-certainty evidence is misleading, and could inadvertently support, low-value care.

We explore these issues in the article and present a case study of online patient decision aids for musculoskeletal pain. We suggest ways to ensure patient decision aids help patients understand the evidence and, where possible, support high-quality care.