Richard M. Hoffman|Mick P. Couper|Brian J. Zikmund?Fisher|Carrie A. Levin|Mary McNaughton?Collins|Deborah L. Helitzer|John VanHoewyk|Michael J. Barry
Prostate Cancer Screening Decisions
New Mexico VA Health Care System
guidelines recommend informing patients risks benefits prostate cancer screening evaluated medical decisionmaking process prostatespecific antigen psa testingwe conducted telephone survey randomly selected national sample 3010 englishspeaking us adults 40 years older included survey 375 men either undergone discussed health care providers hcps psa testing previous 2 years asked subjects sociodemographic characteristics prostate cancer screening discussion features prostate cancer knowledge importance various decision factors sources informationoverall 699 subjects discussed screening making testing decision including 144 tested health care providers often 646 raised idea screening 734 recommended psa testing health care providers emphasized pros testing 714 discussions infrequently addressed cons 320 although 580 subjects felt wellinformed psa testing 478 failed correctly answer 3 knowledge questions 548 subjects reported asked screening preferences hcp recommendation odds ratio 267 95 confidence interval 108658 discussion characteristic associated testing valuing hcp information also associated testing odds ratio 126 95 confidence interval 104154recommendations information hcps strongly influenced testing decisions however prostate cancer screening decisions meet criteria shared decision making subjects receive balanced discussions decision consequences limited knowledge routinely asked preferences