Patients at the Center of Care for Low-risk Thyroid Cancer

It has been said that qualitative research is the most humanistic and patient-centered way of understanding and exploring health issues. It helps to not only understand patterns of health behaviors and experiences but also to design health interventions and develop health care principles to improve patient outcomes. This is of particular importance with low-risk thyroid cancer because overdiagnosis and subsequent overtreatment of this condition have been extensively documented and have become universally accepted issues; however, how to avoid and address these issues remains controversial. Gaining an in-depth understanding of patient and clinician values and preferences is vitally needed, as is the most recent evidence to support effective shared decision-making in treatment plans with current clinical equipoise. In this issue of JAMA Otolaryngology —Head& Neck Surgery, Dr Yang and colleagues report the first meta-ethnography that systematically identified and synthesized 12 studies to explore key individual characteristics and behavioral factors that shape the patient and clinician decision-making process for low-risk thyroid cancer treatment.
Source: JAMA Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery - Category: ENT & OMF Source Type: research