To improve information provision about fertility preservation (FP) and support informed decision making for young breast cancer patients, a decision aid (DA) with explicit values clarification exercise (VCE) was developed. We found that healthy respondents who used the VCE reported less decisional conflict compared to those who did not, but few respondents had used the VCE. The current experiment studies the relation between personality, DA-use and decisional conflict with or without referral to the VCE
Method:
Healthy participants (n=193) were randomized between information only( VCE-), information+VCE without referral to the VCE (VCE+), or information+VCE with referral to the VCE (VCE++) and were asked to make a hypothetical decision regarding FP. Measures were personality traits (neuroticism, conscientiousness, monitoring, blunting ), DA-use (time spent, pages viewed, VCE-use), decisional conflict (including subscales), and knowledge.
Result:
More women in VCE++ used the VCE (85%) compared to VCE+ (57%; OR=4.47, p<0.001). There were no differences in decisional conflict or knowledge between conditions (-/+/++), mean absolute knowledge between baseline and post-DA was 40%. Secondary analyses revealed that blunting was univariately associated with fewer pages viewed (B=-0.734 SE=0.23, p<0.01), monitoring with more time spent on the DA (B=21.01 SE=9.75 p<0.05). Within VCE+/++, VCE-use was related to more values clarity (M=37.1(SD=14.3); M=31.1(SD=14.7) p<0.05). There was an interaction between group x conscientiousness and VCE-use (OR=4.3 p=0.038); conscientiousness was positively related to VCE-use in VCE++, and not related to VCE-use in VCE+.
Conclusion:
Our DA leads to increased knowledge in a healthy population making a hypothetical decision. There were no differences with regard to knowledge or decisional conflict. Secondary analyses suggest a relation between VCE-use and values clarity, and between conscientiousness and VCE-use in the referred group. The extent of use of the total DA was related to monitoring and blunting information seeking styles. Therefore, personality (with regard to information seeking) might be an important factor explaining the extent to which a DA is used, and the effectiveness of DAs .