Shared decision making in mental health: the importance for current clinical practice

Abstract

Objectives: We reviewed the literature on shared decision making (regarding treatments in psychiatry), with a view to informing our understanding of the decision making process and the barriers that exist in clinical practice. Methods: Narrative review of published English-language articles. Results: After culling, 18 relevant articles were included. Themes identified included models of psychiatric care, benefits for patients, and barriers. There is a paucity of published studies specifically related to antipsychotic medications. Conclusions: Shared decision making is a central part of the recovery paradigm and is of increasing importance in mental health service delivery. The field needs to better understand the basis on which decisions are reached regarding psychiatric treatments. Discrete choice experiments might be useful to inform the development of tools to assist shared decision making in psychiatry.