Patients often become confused when selecting a therapy. They usually decide not to participate in the selection process due to lack of information, having stress for making the wrong choice or the lack of effective communication with their physician. The aim of patient decision aids (PDAs) are to promote counseling between patients and healthcare providers on the available options as a tool to assist the decision making process. This paper, various PDAs definitions were investigated and their variation were discussed in different formats. Therefore, there are obstacles that are commonly found in patients' decision-making, which can be avoided through PDAs.
Keywords: Decision support techniques; decision making; patient decision aids; shared decision making.