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Exploring Patients' Preferences

Ronald M. Epstein, MD; Ellen Peters, PhD

JAMA. 2009;302(2):195-197.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The Institute of Medicine considers patient-centered care ("care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values"^1(p6)) to be a foundation of high-quality health care, along with effectiveness, safety, efficiency, timeliness, and equity. Patient-centered care is empirically based and promotes respect and patient autonomy; it is considered an end in itself, not merely a means to achieve other health outcomes.²

Two parallel efforts have furthered patient-centered care. Shared decision making promotes defining problems, presenting options, and providing high-quality information so patients can participate more actively in care.³ Patient-centered communication promotes healing relationships that elicit and consider patients' perspectives and understand patients as persons.² Both approaches assume that patients can articulate preferences based on stable guiding principles or values. While this may be true in straightforward situations, in novel, unanticipated, and emotionally charged situations, preferences may not be elicited . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Stable and Constructed Preferences

Author Affiliations: Departments of Family Medicine, Psychiatry, and Oncology, Rochester Center to Improve Communication in Health Care, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York (Dr Epstein); and Decision Research, University of Oregon, Eugene (Dr Peters).

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