Background

Decision support interventions (DESIs) provide a mechanism to translate comparative effectiveness research results into clinical care so that patients are able to make informed decisions. Patient decision support interventions for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) have been shown to promote informed decision making and reduce PSA testing in efficacy trials, but their impact in real world settings is not clear.

Objective

We performed an effectiveness trial of PSA decision support interventions in primary care.

Design

A randomized controlled trial of three distribution strategies was compared to a control.

Participants

Participants included 2,550 men eligible for PSA testing (76.6 % of the eligible population) and 2001 survey respondents (60.1 % survey response rate).

Interventions

The intervention groups were: 1) mailed the DESI in DVD format, 2) offered a shared medical appointment (SMA) to view the DESI with other men and discuss, and 3) both options.

Main measures

We measured PSA testing identified via electronic medical record at 12 months and DESI use by self-report 4 months after the intervention mailing.

Key results

We found no differences in PSA testing across the three distribution strategies over a year-long follow-up period: 21 %, 24 %, 22 % in the DESI, SMA, and combined group respectively, compared to 21 % in the control group (p = 0.51). Self-reported DESI use was low across all strategies at 4 months: 16 % in the mailed DESI group, 6 % in the SMA group, and 15 % in the combined group (p = < 0.0001).

Conclusions

Mailing PSA decision support interventions or inviting men to shared medical appointments unrelated to a primary care office visit do not appear to promote informed decision making, or change PSA testing behavior.