Shared Decision Making in the Medical Encounter: Are We All Talking about the Same Thing?

Although several clear definitions of shared decision making have been proposed, they are cited by only about a third of the papers reviewed. In the other papers, authors refer to the term without specifying or citing a definition or use the term inconsistently with their definition. This is a problem because having a clear definition of the concept and following this definition are essential to guide and focus research. Authors should use the term consistently with the identified definition.