Effectiveness of DECIDE in Patient-Provider Communication, Therapeutic Alliance & Care Continuation

Summary

The purpose of this study is to learn more about how patients and healthcare providers interact in order to improve shared decision making. The investigators plan to test an intervention with two separate educational components-one for patients and one for providers-designed to encourage patients to ask questions and increase their level of involvement in their own care, while simultaneously training providers to be more receptive to patients' questions and concerns. Patients in the intervention group will receive three short (30-45 minute) trainings focused on developing and asking questions and will be interviewed three times over the course of the intervention to see how it has affected the quality of their care. Providers receiving the intervention will participate in three separate trainings, including a 12-hour group workshop, an additional two hour training, and six hours of individual instruction, including personalized feedback based on three audio-recorded patient visits. Previous studies looking at patient engagement and involvement in decision-making have shown that increased engagement is linked with improved outcomes, but that providers are sometimes not prepared to develop a collaborative relationship with patients. The investigators think that training both patients and providers to work together and communicate more effectively will improve quality of care and increase patient satisfaction more than interventions that focus on only one side of the clinical encounter. One of the major goals in studying patient-provider communication is to improve shared decision-making and see how it contributes to racial and ethnic disparities in mental health care, since minority patients have been shown to be less involved in care and have been shown to be perceived and treated differently by providers.

Conditions

• Mental Disorders

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

DECIDE-PA

The DECIDE-PA intervention teaches patients strategies for asking questions and communicating more effectively with their behavioral health care provider in order to improve shared decision making.

BEHAVIORAL

DECIDE-PC

The DECIDE-PC intervention trains providers in patient-centered communication techniques and encourages providers to be receptive to patients who take a more active role during the clinical encounter in order to improve shared decision making.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• Massachusetts General Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Margarita Alegria, Ph.D. · Massachusetts General Hospital

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

80 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2013-09-30

Primary Completion

2016-10-31

Completion

2016-10-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations