Individualized Patient Decision Making for Treatment Choices Among Minorities With Lupus

Patient self-administered, validated measure of decisional conflict, most commonly used as the primary outcome in RCTs of decision aids (change score). The score ranges from 0 (no decisional conflict) to 100 (extreme decisional conflict). Decisional conflict represents a state of uncertainty about a choice or course of action and is more likely in situations involving high-stakes choices with important potential gains and losses, value tradeoffs in selecting a choice or a course of action (vs. the alternative) or uncertain outcomes.

Concordance between values related (for or against starting) immunosuppressive drugs with patients' decision (to start or not start) immunosuppressive drugs, in those with adequate knowledge about benefits/harms of immunosuppressive drugs, assessed using validated instruments for values regarding immunosuppressive drugs, knowledge about immunosuppressive drugs, and treatment decision-making (patient's decision to start immunosuppressive drug).

This scale assessed how much decision-making control they would like to have versus actually experienced. There are 5 responses for 5 control options: active, active shared, collaborative, passive shared and passive, which were collapsed into active (active, active shared), collaborative, and passive (passive shared and passive), as previously (and pre-specified). Concordance was assessed between desired and actual role played by each patient. We present these data for patients with current flare only, since only they were making a decision about the immunosuppressive drugs; patients with past lupus flare were not included in the denominator.

This was assessed using the interpersonal processes of care (IPC), an 18-item validated patient-reported measure of patient-physician communication and care processes. The score ranges from 18 (worst) to 90 (best) and the scale is a patient-reported measure of patient-physician communication and care processes.

This was done by analyzing the audio-recorded patient-physician discussion in patients with current lupus nephritis flare. The APCC is a validated instrument to measure 'active patient participation.' APCC assesses indicators and facilitators of patient participation. The unit of coding is the utterance, the oral analogue of a sentence. The range is 0 to unlimited. Patient participation is measured by the number of questions, number of concerns expressed, and act of assertiveness (e.g., preferences, introducing topics, making requests). These are 'active' forms of participation because of their influence on clinician behavior and the structure and content of the consultation. The APPC also assess clinician behaviors that facilitate and support patient participation, partnership-building and supportive talk (e.g., reassurance, empathy). We present doctor patient-centered communication. higher scores indicates better patient participation and communication.

Acceptability of the decision-aid (information quality and quantity, presentation style and usefulness) was assessed using a validated acceptability survey on 4-point scale ranging from "excellent" to "poor" (response options were: excellent, good, fair and poor). The number of patients rating each of the five statements as "excellent" (vs. other ratings) was compared between the two treatment arms.

Feasibility of the decision-aid vs. pamphlet was assessed using a single statement "The education guide was easy to use". Patients rated this on 5-point ordinal scale ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" (response options were: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree). The number of patients was compared between the two treatment arms.