Qualitative research: interviews with patients and doctors considering major surgery
This project is an in-depth qualitative study, combining interviews with observations of the shared decision making process. We seek to extend our understanding of the shared decision-making practices for patients contemplating high risk surgery.
We aim to understand how the motivations, expectations and communicative approaches of patients, their doctor and (where appropriate) carers or families combine to shape decisions about treatment. The study involves video-recording shared decision making encounters about major surgery, between patients, their carers/families and doctors in order to understand the content and interaction flow of these discussions; followed by individual interviews with patients and their doctors (immediately after the encounter and again 3-6 months later) in order to understand the reasoning for and reflections on people’s decisions. Participants will therefore be involved in the study for a short time overall (estimated half a day in total), but spread over a period of up to 6 months