Decisional Conflict among Patients Who Accept or Decline Participation in Phase I Oncology Studies

Abstract

We compared decisional conflict among adults with advanced cancer who had accepted or declined participation in phase I cancer clinical trials. Respondents completed a 121-item questionnaire that included the Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS), which was designed to measure uncertainty in making health decisions. We used standardized effect sizes to compare the DCS scores of accepters ( n = 250) and decliners ( n = 65). Accepters had lower decisional conflict than decliners overall ( d = 0.42; 95% confidence interval, 0.17–0.68) and on all subscales. Whether greater decisional conflict among decliners represents suboptimal decision-making and is reason for bioethical concern depends on how the results are interpreted. We offer three scenarios to explain the differences and describe opportunities for future empirical work.