Shared decision making and the use of outcome information in decisions about post-treatment surveillance after breast cancer treatment : analysis of quantitative data

This study aims at identifying associations between SDM, age and health literacy and to examine if the relationship between age and SDM is moderated by health literacy. A cross-sectional design was adopted with 266 participants. The variable SDM was assessed with the SDM Q-9 and the CollaboRATE. Further, health literacy was assessed through the SBSQ. A Pearson correlation has been calculated. Then, a multiple linear regression was conducted to reveal a possible moderation effect of the variable health literacy on the independent variable age and the dependent variable SDM. In the post-treatment phase, SDM currently takes place occasionally. Older age was weakly associated with higher SDM (SDM Q-9), but no association between age and CollaboRate was found. Moreover, health literacy and SDM (SDM Q-9) were weakly negatively associated with each other. However, no association between health literacy and SDM measured using the CollaboRATE could be found. Moreover, the instruments SDM Q-9 and CollaboRATE were found to be strongly associated with each other. Additionally, a negative weak correlation between age and health literacy was found. The CollaboRATE did not show any significant correlations besides with SDM Q-9. Additionally, no moderating effect of health literacy on age and SDM was found.