By definition, shared decision-making is a two-way exchange between the clinician and patient that incorporates the best-available evidence, clinical expertise, and – crucially – a patient’s values and preferences. These decision aids serve as a tool to facilitate that process. However, patients can also review these decision aids before and/or after they meet with their clinician before they make a decision about what approach they want to take for the choice at hand and that’s why they are such a valuable tool.

Dr Julie Sprakel: Founder & Chair of the NGO mentions, “This process of shared decision making is not new, it should be part of every clinician visit. The harms verses benefit for an intervention, gives the patient a better-informed decision when deciding one way or the other. This is often part of the dialogue during a visit.

What we wanted to be able to do, is support our end users with the most up to date and relevant information in relation to three of the clinical scenarios from our recent National Breast Cancer Guidelines: Early Breast Cancer Treatment, Breast Reconstruction verses Mastectomy and Immediate verses Delayed breast reconstruction.

Our focus group of volunteers, patients and consumer advocates deemed these topics were of increased interest to them, so we proceeded with the three to start with and gain feedback, in terms of making an impact.”

How the aids were developed?

“The decision aids are the end result of systematic evidence reviews and careful synthesis, including making sure the content of the decision aid is presented at a reading level that helps ensure all who use it can understand it. Once the decision aids are made, they undergo in-house review by several people (including people not directly involved in the evidence review and synthesis), and the decision aids are also evaluated via a sample of people outside of EBSCO to determine whether the decision aids meet needs of people facing this decision, and if not, how they could be improved.” notes Dr Alper.

They (the decision aids) were a commissioned project by Think Pink: Bahrain Breast Cancer Society and follows on from the National Breast Cancer Guidelines produced and published in 2018/2019, funded by the NGO and received by the Supreme Council of Health and the NHRA. Speaking on behalf of the Charity, Mrs Tahera Al Alwai: Vice Chair of the NGO states, “It has always been important for the Charity to be very much consumer driven. It has been our goal to get back to our “roots” following extremely high impacted and delivered milestones over the years. Julie and I were at each development process with EBSCO, working remotely with the International Team. A working group from the Charity side in Bahrain supported the double binding translation, to ensure continuity and clarity, of which also included Faye Al Khalifa and Fatima Al Hannan.

** EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is a leading provider of clinical decision support solutions, shared decision marketing resources, medical research information and business intelligence for the healthcare industry. Our mission is to improve patient care by providing healthcare professionals with the most current, reliable, and unbiased answers to clinical questions as when, where and how they need it. Robust content, state-of-the art technology solutions and superior customer service are the hallmarks of EBSCO. EBSCO users include professionals in medicine, nursing, and allied health. Flagship products include DynaMed®, Dynamic Health™, HealthDecision®, and DynaMed Shared Decisions™ decision aids. Speaking about the collaboration Dr Brian Alper: Board Certifications: Family Medicine, Clinical Informatics. Founder of DynaMed, Vice President of Innovations and Evidence-Based Medicine Development, EBSCO Health, “We have created decision aids in various forms used in United States, United Kingdom and Germany. The specific decision aids and form for use in Bahrain, including Arabic translation, is unique. This is a newsworthy development in which an NGO has created for the first time an Arabic-language, patient-friendly, evidence-based decision aid set for a high-importance topic domain, breast cancer. This is the first commissioned work of its kind in the Middle East.”**

MAMMOGRAM FOR BREAST CANCER SCREENING