Shared decision making among hypertensive clients in public hospitals of West Shoa, central Ethiopia, 2020: Institution based cross sectional study

BACKGROUND: Patient involvement in health care empowers patients to choose treatment and improves the quality of care and treatment outcomes. Despite its purpose, shared decision-making in clinical encounters was not given attention. So, this study aims to assess the level of shared decision-making among hypertensive patients. OBJECTIVE: To study the level of shared decision-making among hypertensive patients. METHOD: The institution-based cross-sectional study method was used to collect data in three randomly selected public hospitals in the West Shoa Zone. A simple random sampling method was used for the selection of study participants. A pretested and structured shared decision-making questionnaire was used to measure patient engagement in decision-making. A descriptive analysis was done to determine the individual patient's level of involvement in shared decision-making. A 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was used to determine the level of shared decision-making. RESULTS: A total of 406 patients with hypertension participated in the study, yielding a response rate of 96.2%. Totally, 45.3% [CI (43.28–46.75)] of the participants have actively participated in shared decision-making. On the other hand, 53.6% [CI (49.42–56.7)] of participants reported they have been understood by their caregivers, and 52.9% [CI (46.2–58.9)] of the participants reported their caregiver helped them understand all the treatment options. On the other hand, only 121 patients, i.e., 34.7% [CI [28.86–37.8]] of the participants, have jointly chosen one type of treatment with their care provider. CONCLUSION: The level of involvement in shared decision-making among hypertensive patients is low in the study area compared to the expected standard of shared decision-making. So enhanced patient involvement in health care decisions is important.