Decision Making and Prostate Cancer Screening

This article presents an overview of the challenges that men encounter in making decisions about prostate cancer screening, including complex affective and cognitive factors and controversies in the interpretation of the evidence on prostate cancer screening. Shared decision making involving patient decision aids are discussed as approaches that can be used to improve the quality of prostate cancer screening decisions, including a close alignment between a man’s values, goals, and preferences and his choice about screening.

In addition to affect, Arkes and Gaissmaier point to several cognitive factors that further complicate prostate cancer screening decisions. For example, anecdotal evidence and personal experience can be persuasive even in light of contradictory data. Even when data are available, the interpretation may be challenging due to tendencies to disregard contextual information such as base rates.

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