Effective communication and shared decision making: Theoretical approach from the doctor-patient relationship approach

Introduction: shared decision making is understood as a communicational model in which health personnel collaborate with the patient or caregiver in making optimal health decisions, encouraging patients, family members and physicians to evaluate clinical information and compare risk-benefit in order to select the most appropriate treatment option. Objective: to characterize shared decision making as a model of patient-physician communication. Development: the method has gained acceptance among the medical community in recent years; despite having an approach in line with current medicine due to benefits such as a decrease in medical errors, being associated with a better overall quality of decisions and less decisional conflict, its use is controversial due to weaknesses such as lack of practical guidelines for its use, lack of training for the parties involved, lack of time and applicability due to the patient's characteristics. Shared decision support tools provide information about the options and potentially expected outcomes for a person's health status, and are different from traditional educational materials. Conclusions: shared decision making emerges as a method of patient-physician communication centered on the participation of the patient in his or her medical therapy and is credited with reducing decisional uncertainty. The scientific evidence is insufficient to recommend its use over traditional methods, although its application has gained acceptance among the international community in recent years