Abstract: In recent years shared decision making (SDM) has gained importance
as an appropriate approach for patient-physician communication and health
related decision-making. The benefits of SDMconcerning patient satisfaction,
treatment adherence or reduction of decisional conflict have been shown in
several studies using interventional approaches on both the patients' and
physicians' side. This article introduces the Ottawa Decision Support Framework (ODSF)
as a theory-based guidance for the design and evaluation of SDM interventions
such as patient decision aids, training of health professionals or patient
education. Its key elements are assessment of decisional needs, provision of
decision support and evaluation of decision process and outcome. In addition
this article presents an allocation of available psychometric instruments for
measuring dimensions of the framework. Most of them stem from Englishspeaking
countries and have been translated into German. The Ottawa Decision Support Framework can be used for the
development of SDM interventions and associated evaluation strategies.
Evaluation measures can be chosen from a variety of instruments, yet many of
them still need to show their psychometric quality in further studies.