Facilitating shared decision making with a patient decision aid for choosing a treatment for multiple sclerosis: guiding stakeholders through a forest of criteria

Developments in the medication for MS give patients with MS new opportunities to slow down the progression of the disease, but also make it more difficult to determine an appropriate medication for the patient. Active participation of MS patients in treatment decisions is needed. A decision aid has been developed to support Shared Decision-making between MS patients and caregivers, applying methodologies often used in health technology assessment (best-worst scaling and multi-criteria decision analysis). Shared Decision-making also appears to be a desirable intervention from an economic point of view. Early economic evaluation indicates that Shared Decision-making for MS has the potential to be cost-effective. These results can motivate policymakers to implement Shared Decision-making for MS.