Background Shared decision-making (SDM) is the process in which healthcare professionals and patients jointly discuss and decide which care and treatment policy is to be followed. The importance of SDM is increasingly being recognised across health settings, including palliative care. Little is known about SDM with people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) in the last phase of life. This review aimed to explore to which extent and in which way people with ID in the last phase of life are involved in decision-making about their care and treatment. Method In this scoping review, we systematically searched in the Embase, Medline and PsycINFO databases for empirical studies on decision-making with people with ID in the last phase of life. Results Of a total of 281 identified titles and abstracts, 10 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. All focused on medical end-of-life decisions, such as foregoing life-sustaining treatment, do-not-attempt-resuscitation orders or palliative sedation. All studies emphasise the relevance of involving people with ID themselves, or at least their relatives, in making decisions at the end of life. Still, only two papers described processes of decision-making in which persons with ID actively participated. Furthermore, in only one paper, best practices and guidelines for decision-making in palliative care for people with ID were defined. Conclusion Although the importance of involving people with ID in the decision-making process is emphasised, best practices or guidelines about what this should look like are lacking. We recommend developing aids that specifically support SDM with people with ID in the last phase of life.
Objective: To obtain insight in self-management challenges of persons with advanced cancer and factors that influence their self-management.Methods: Exploratory study among persons with advanced cancer. We conducted in-depth interviews and performed an inductive thematic analysis, using open, axial and selective coding.Results: We interviewed 33 persons with advanced cancer. Four self-management challenges were identified: (1) Dealing with physical and psychological symptoms and problems. (2) Navigating the illness trajectory, including management of clinical appointments and treatment regimens, end-of-life planning life and 'maintaining normality'. (3) Managing relations with healthcare professionals, including contributing experiential knowledge to medical decision-making. (4) Navigating changes in the social environment. Some participants responded proactively to these challenges, for example, by actively searching for information to obtain an extensive understanding of their illness and (re)scheduling medical appointments for a better fit in their agenda. Self-management strategies seemed to be influenced by patients' personality, life history, moment in the illness trajectory and the social environment.
Conclusion:Self-management challenges of persons with advanced cancer are based largely outside the professional care setting. Self-management strategies in response to these challenges are typically aimed at maintaining a normal life. Self-management support should be tailored to patients' needs and part of trustful partnerships with patients and relatives.
Shared Decision Making (SDM) is currently seen as the preferred practice when medical decisions are needed. Ideally, doctors, care providers, and patients discuss possible care and treatment options.Patients' preferences and values are weighed and the best possible choice is jointly made by the patient and health care professional (Stiggelbout et al., 2012). Decision-making processes can become more difficult if a person with an intellectual disability cannot actively participate in these conversations. Watson et al developed a supported decision-making framework especially for these situations, focussing on how to involve people with severe and profound intellectual disabilities meaningfully (Watson et al., 2017). They explain how important it is to have a good, emotionally involved
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.