Articles Related to Decision Making

Background: In Multiple Sclerosis, more efficient disease modifying treatment (DMT) are often accompanied by higher risks and side effects. Selecting the optimal DMT demands from patients and doctors therefore a complex decision-making process weighing risks and benefits. Patients and doctors often prefer to share responsibility when making these treatment decisions, but this shared decision-making model requests decision-making competence on both sides. The aim of our online study was to investigate whether patients’ decision-making competence relates to DMT selection. Method: 197 patients participated in the online survey, advertised by two patient organizations. Patients reported their DMT and who decided for or against a DMT: their neurologist, themselves, or both. We measured decision-making competence with two tasks from the Adult Decision-Making Competence Battery (A-DMC), the ability to follow decision rules and the consistency of risk perception. Perceived impairment of the disease was measured with Patient Determined Disease Steps (PDDS). Results: The ability to follow decision rules varied with the potency of the DMT. Patients receiving basic DMT were better able to follow decision rules compared to patients receiving medium DMT. Patients who did not take any DMT stated more frequently that this decision was their own choice and independent of their doctor’s advice. Conclusions: If patients without DMT decided against this treatment on their own behalf, doctors and caregivers potentially have to strengthen their effort to reach out to the patient and to ensure the decision is well taken.

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We live in an individualistic age. People can follow who they like on social media, read news that aligns with their preconceived notions of right and wrong, and generally avoid critical engagement with ideas they disagree with or situations that make them uncomfortable. This modern phenomenon has led to quick judgement and rapid recoil when others share ideas or information that challenges the inertia of their beliefs and choices. In a post-expertise culture [1], people simply don’t want to be told what to do. This is a problem for the profession of dentistry, where the prevailing paternalistic norms for the better part of the past 150 years have focused on the dentist as the unilateral authority, with the primary responsibility of promoting oral health through “education” or “counseling” – polite euphemisms for telling people what to do. Despite our growing body of scientific evidence showing we can keep people and their teeth healthy, we have become collectively exasperated that this evidence-based information isn’t enough to change the behaviors necessary to prevent disease. As healthcare providers, we wonder why people have stopped listening (if they ever really did). But stepping back, we only need to think for a minute about our current cultural milieu, where the curation of consensus leaves us unfollowed, and worse, blocked.

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The group decision making is a very useful technique for ranking the group of alternatives, the cubic averaging operator is new tool in group decision making problems. In this article, we develop a series of new operators so called cubic weighted averaging (CWA) operator, cubic ordered weighted averaging (COWA) operator and cubic hybrid averaging (CHA) operator. We also discussed some particular cases and properties of these operators. Furthermore, we apply the proposed aggregation operators to deal with multiple attribute group decision making in which decision information takes the form of cubic numbers. Finally, we used some practical examples to illustrate the validity and feasibility of the proposed methods by comparing with other methods.

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To report the decision making in management of badly decayed First Permanent Molars (FPMs) in children and adolescents among clinical consultants (specialists) and pediatric dentists at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Faculty of Dentistry, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

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The evidential and investigative value of a latent fingerprint with insufficient characteristics to identify can sometimes be an issue of debate. In this report the authors present the case of a latent fingerprint bearing details in agreement with no visible discrepancies, but with insufficient information to identify.

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Within traumatic-injury populations, adjustment following the suffering of a permanent impairment such as a traumatic Spinal Cord Injury (tSCI) follows quite a different path (and has quite different longer term participation outcomes) when the individual involved is a child or adolescent, and not an adult.

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