The following is a summary of “Physicians approach shared decision-making for sports eligibility decisions heterogeneously,” published in the April 2024 issue of Cardiology by Montembeau et al.
Limited information exists on the approach sports cardiologists take to implementing shared decision-making (SDM) with athletes with cardiovascular conditions from a cardiologist’s perspective.
Researchers conducted a prospective study to understand the conceptions of SDM and approach to sports eligibility decisions.
They interviewed sports cardiologists by telephone or video conference between October 2022 and May 2023, asking open- and close-ended questions. Major domains included conceptions of SDM, approaches to SDM, perceptions of athletes’ views on risk, and thresholds of reasonable risk for continued participation. The transcripts were used to conduct a descriptive analysis.
The results studied 20 sports cardiologists (12 male and 5 female) with a mean age of 50±12 years. From these 20 cardiologists, 17 fully endorsed SDM, while 3 participants said SDM was appropriate in some or most eligibility decisions. The cardiologists’ answers indicate heterogeneous definitions and operationalization of SDM, with only 6 participants mentioning patient preference elicitation. Physician roles and athlete risk perception varied. The prohibitive annual risk of sudden cardiac death ranged from <1% to >10%.
Investigators concluded that SDM is widely accepted in sports eligibility decisions and emphasized the importance of further exploration to enhance comprehension and identify optimal implementation strategies.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666602224000144?via%3Dihub
