Training health professionals in shared decision making: Update of an international environmental scan

To update an environmental scan of training programs in SDM for health professionals. We searched two systematic reviews for SDM training programs targeting health professionals produced from 2011 to 2015, and also in Google and social networks. With a standardized data extraction sheet, one reviewer extracted program characteristics. All completed extraction forms were validated by a second reviewer. We found 94 new eligible programs in four new countries and two new languages, for a total of 148 programs produced from 1996 to 2015—an increase of 174% in four years. The largest percentage appeared since 2012 (45.27%). Of the 94 newprograms, 42.55% targeted licensed health professionals (n = 40), 8.51% targeted pre-licensure (n = 8), 28.72% targeted both (n = 27), 20.21% did not specify (n = 19), and 5.32% targeted also patients (n = 5). Only 23.40% of the new programs were reported as evaluated, and 21.28% had published evaluations. Production of SDM training programs is growing fast worldwide. Like the original scan, this update indicates that SDM training programs still vary widely. Most still focus on the single provider/patient dyad and few are evaluated. This update highlights the need to adapt training programs to interprofessional practice and to evaluate them.