Prediction of health professionals' intention to screen for decisional conflict in clinical practice

Objective To identify the determinants of the intention of physicians to screen for decisional conflict in clinical practice. Background Screening for decisional conflict is one of the key competencies when educating health professionals about shared decision making. Theory-based knowledge about variables predicting their intention to screen for decisional conflict in clinical practice would help design effective implementation interventions in this area. Design Data of two cross-sectional surveys embedded within a large implementation study of the Ottawa Decision Support Framework (ODSF) in primary care. Setting and participants In total, 122 health professionals from five family practice teaching units. Methods Intention to screen for decisional conflict in clinical practice was defined as the intention to use the clinical version of the Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS) with patients at the end of the clinical encounter. It was assessed at the entry and the exit from this study. Both intentions were entered as a dependent variable in multivariate analyses. Main results At entry, the intention was influenced by: attitude (P