Shared decision-making in question

Over recent years, communication within the physician-patient relationship has been profoundly changing. New modes of conveying diagnostic and therape utic information influence the way in which decisions regarding treatment a re made. We propose a critical review of the various theoretical models as presented in the literature, from the paternalistic to the shared decision model, in order to reveal conceptual ambiguities and their related methodol ogical problems. This analysis leads to a project for clarifying these prob lems through a research protocol based on shared decision-making. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.