My group reviewed a 5-page selection from a focus group on making difficult decisions. Some of the themes that we collectively identified include:
Description of decision-making process (including time taken, level of support from others in the decision-making process, whether decision was made alone or in conjunction with others).
Factors affecting final decision made (age, amount and type of information given or obtained, quality vs quantity of life, opinion of family or spouse, previous experiences)
Satisfaction or contentedness with the decision-making process
Satisfaction or contentedness with the final decision made
I chose to focus on the last two themes:
1. Satisfaction or contentedness with the decision-making process
“I had no support as to making that decision and when I’m up for another decision and I’d like to know the procedure…”
“I was helped enormously by the…”
“I was getting various recommendations from different people and I think I surprised a lot of people when I chose certain…:
“Actually, I had no problem in making that decision. Just informed the family what was going to happen and then I said…..so that was an easy decision”
2. Satisfaction or contentedness with the final decision made
“I finally chose surgery – this is ten years ago and it turned out fine”
“I was told at the time that there was a 20-25% chance that I wouldn’t wake up, but I made it.”
“it was the best decision I could have made because after the surgery, they did another biopsy, and I knew exactly where I stood. You know, it came out clean, you know, the whole thing, so- “
“Anyhow, I decided to wait and I’m still waiting and I’m eleven years older. I still have the tumor, but it never got any bigger.”
Memo:
Overall I found it interesting to see that satisfaction with the decision-making process varied greatly among the participants. Some were quite content with the process, stating that it was an easy decision, others identified that they felt that they hadn’t been given enough support or information. Secondly, it seemed that people’s satisfaction with the decision-making process and the final decision made were partially dependent on their final health outcome. I.e. we were talking to many cancer survivors and I think many were more likely to feel happy about the decisions they made because they survived and were cancer free- i.e. they were more likely to feel like they had made the “right decision”. If we had talked to someone whose cancer had progressed after making a decision to not have surgery, etc- I wonder if their satisfaction with the decision-making process and the decision itself would have been different.