Shared decision-making knowledge and attitudes of healthcare practitioners in sports medicine

PROJECT PARTNERS

· Aspetar Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Hospital

FUNDING

None

BACKGROUND

Shared-decision making (SDM) has become the golden standard in making heath care decisions. It is defined as a process in which both clinician and patient bring their own expertise to reach an informed and personalized decision. The clinician is the expert on risks and benefits of options, the patient the expert on his or her personal preferences and values. Reconciling these two is the essence of shared decision making.

There is abundant research on shared-decision making in various specific and more general populations. But little is known about shared-decision making in sports medicine.

Results from research on shared-decision making in other populations cannot be immediately translated to the sports medicine population. The circumstances under which athlete health care decisions are made is significantly different. Athletes are often part of a multidisciplinary team, consisting not only of medically trained professionals such as a physician and physiotherapist but also of non-medical professionals such as a coach and trainer. My research will focus on how to implement shared-decision making in sports medicine.

OBJECTIVES

This first project aims to assess the knowledge of and attitude towards shared decision making of sports medicine healthcare practitioners. This will be the first step in researching the implementation of shared decision-making in sports medicine.