Decision support tools in oncology aim to facilitate decisions of cancer patients, such as treatment decisions -including no-treatment options- and provider choice. While these tools have been successful in improving the quality of patient decision making, they have not considered the needs of an ageing population. Information processing and decision making by older adults are known to differ from that of younger adults. The efficiency of deliberative information processing declines with age, whereas implicit/automatic processes are relatively spared. Older adults are also considered to use their intuitive/affective mode more often in decision making. These age-related processes might lead to suboptimal support of older cancer patients’ decisions.
This study aims to investigate how information in decision support tools can be optimized for older cancer patients. The modifications investigated are based on dual-coding and dual-process theories from psychology and communication science. Specifically, we will focus on modifications that aim to:
lower the cognitive effort needed to process information about decision options;
correct the positivity bias in older people’s information processing;
provide an alternative, intuitive form of value clarification methods.
This project focuses on decision support tools for breast cancer patients and early stage lung cancer patients.
The project is a collaboration between the department of Public and Occupational Health www.sgvumc.nl and the EMGO+ Institute www.emgo.nl of the VU University Medical Center (budgetholder) and the Amsterdam School of Communication Research/ASCoR of the University of Amsterdam
| Research team: | Olga Damman (PostDoc VUmc) Julia van Weert Danielle Timmermans (VUmc) |
| Status: | Will start in January 2017 |
| Funding: | Dutch Cancer Society |