Decision aid for tinnitus
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Facilitating Shared Decision Making in Tinnitus care: The development of a tinnitus decision aid
IRAS ID
199005
Contact name
Helen Pryce
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Aston University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 1 days
Research summary
Shared Decision Making (SDM) is a component of patient centred care. It is a process by which both the clinician and patient are involved in choosing treatment or screening procedures. Unfortunately shared decision making is still not commonplace in healthcare. In tinnitus services it is likely to be the treatments that the clinician prefers that will end up being offered to the patient. There is a striking level of dissatisfaction with treatment options on websites such as NHS Choices. There is a common mis-communication in tinnitus services between patient preferences for outcomes (not to hear tinnitus) and preferences for treatments (to use psychological or acoustic interventions to reduce the time listening to tinnitus).
We will find out how people make decisions in clinic about managing their tinnitus by observing a small number of clinical appointments in 3 contrasting tinnitus services (strand 1). We will interview people with tinnitus to find out what they need to know to make choices about their care (strand 2). We will then develop an Option Grid to standardize the way choices are communicated and to provide a tool for clinicians and patients to share in the decision making process. Option Grids are one-page evidence-based summaries of available options presented in a tabular format, listing patients’ essential trade-offs or frequently asked questions.
We will investigate factors that will influence a clinical trial of the Option Grid such as people’s willingness to be randomized into different conditions. To do this we will hold focus group interviews of patients and clinicians (strand 3)This will help us to design a trial in the future to test the option grid we develop.REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/WM/0142
Date of REC Opinion
22 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion