Table 1 Proposed strategy to increase awareness and implement SDM in Malaysia
Proposed strategy | Description | |
|---|---|---|
1 | Education | ● Incorporating teaching of SDM into undergraduate curriculum |
○ General communication and consultation skills | ||
○ Risk communication | ||
○ Evidence-based medicine | ||
● Incorporating a more structured SDM teaching into postgraduate curriculum | ||
○ Communication and consultation skills | ||
○ Emphasis on specific areas requiring informed consent such as surgeries, chemotherapy, screening | ||
○ Assessment of trainees competency in SDM | ||
● Incorporating SDM training into continuing professional development, including workshops on SDM and how to use patient decision aids | ||
2 | Clinical practice | ● Incorporating SDM in clinical practice guidelines |
● Advocate the use of patient decision aids or other decision support tools in patient care | ||
● Patient involvement in decision making as a quality indicator | ||
● Payment/reimbursement for practices which implement SDM or use decision aids | ||
3 | Research | ● Baseline research on patient involvement in decision making at the national level |
● Exploratory studies on the factors influencing decision making in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual context | ||
● Developing and evaluating decision support interventions to help patients make informed decisions | ||
● Develop and evaluate interventions to incorporate SDM in routine care | ||
4 | Policy and law | ● Malaysian Medical Council should consider developing a national healthcare policy on SDM |
● The Ministry of Health should improve on the existing patient health information system to make the content more accurate, user-friendly and accessible to the public | ||
● Public health campaigns should target at empowering people to be more involved in their health care and making decisions about their health care |