Impact of a Decision Aid Regarding Natural Health Products for Menopausal Symptoms

Health decision making is a process known to be difficult, specially in uncertainty context. Because of a lack of evidence, natural health products field remains uncertain. Decision aids (or decision support interventions) have been elaborated in the past for several health decisions and previous studies showed that they seem to be effective on reducing decisional conflict. Following a needs assessment with 40 women and 15 key informants, we developed a decision aid tool specific to the context of natural health products for menopause. In this study, we will assess its impact on decisional conflict, knowledge, persistence for an option, intention to use for a future decision in the same area, and intention to disclose use of natural health products to health professionals.

Comparison: An existing general information brochure on menopause compared to a decision aid tool that we developed based on the Ottawa Decision Support Framework.

Inclusion criteria

Women :

• between 45 and 64 years old
• reporting suffering from menopausal symptoms
• considering the use of natural health products for menopausal symptoms
• able to read, write, and understand french at a grade 8 level
• able to give an informed consent for her participation to the study

Exclusion criteria

• manager and/or owner of a natural health products store,a pharmacy and/or a pharmaceutical company
• person with close relationships with one or many collaborators of this study
• reporting suffering from symptoms with no precise diagnosis