Patient decision aids to support clinical decision making: Evaluating the decision or the outcomes of the decision

Decision aids (DAs) are tools to support consu-mers make informed health decisions with their practitioner/provider. They aim to improve patient knowledge of options, incorporate the patients’ preferences and values, and increase patient invol-vement in the health decision-making process. This approach fits within the model of shared decision making1–3 and is often seen as most relevant in preference-sensitive situations, in which the patient desires to be involved in the decision process.4 Increasingly, the debate about DAs concerns how they should be implemented in practice, with the view that DAs are superior to usual clinical care in facilitating health decision making.5 In this article, we challenge that view and present a new randomized design t