Decisional awareness and role
Participants reported self-referral stimulated patients’ willingness to involve in their own decision-making. As two nephrologists put it.
“Self-referral patients have put more focus on choosing their own dialysis modalities, they had burning requirement for related knowledge and communication. It signified patients’ the concept of participating decisions have gradually experienced transformation. We were glad to see it…” (N 1)
Participants indicated that treatment decision-making should be involved by staff-patient-family jointly, not necessarily decided by one side. Self-referral patients reported that they have strong awareness to acquire disease knowledge and choose suitable option lining with their value and preference, but the ultimate decision maker should be whom can take responsibility for decision, usually staffs.
“Patients should have rights to follow or refused physicians’ suggestions. However, the prerequisite was that we must have full understanding. However, we were at a professional disadvantage than doctors, thus, we should defer to HCPs for the fateful decision.”(P11)