Advances in shared decision-making for breast cancer screening in Spain

Resumo

One of the most recent goals of health programmes in many countries is developing a person-centred healthcare model; however, strategies to implement it are still scarce, especially in health contexts such as preventive medicine. In the context of screening programmes, Shared Decision Making (SDM) can be a good alternative. Research has been carried out in Spain to understand both the local and international situation through systematic reviews and initiatives ranging from: the creation of Decision Aid (DA) support tools; the measuring of their effects on users' knowledge of the screening risks and benefits; the writing of manuals for healthcare professionals; the assessment of the patient’s satisfaction in this type of relationship with the healthcare professional and, the efficiency of including SDM in a new way of conducting the screening programme. Nevertheless, efforts have not ensured yet its applicability as a routine practice in the clinical encounter and therefore, innovations and studies are still being conducted to make it real.