ABSTRACT
Background: Shared decision-making (SDM) involves patients in making decisions about their care, informed by clinical evidence and patient values and preferences. Despite its importance to woman-centred care, effectively implemented SDM remains uncommon in maternity care. This project developed clinician SDM training to help reduce variation in planned birth (labour induction/elective Caesarean), and pilottested acceptability and feasibility. Methods: An online SDM clinician training intervention package was developed in 2020-2021 by a Sydney-based team including midwifery and medical maternity clinicians, consumers, and social scientists. The package included a preparatory online video and a two-hour practical workshop (converted to online due to COVID-19) where participants rotate roles (woman, clinician, observer/rater) in clinical scenarios devised to test SDM in planned birth. Participants completed online pre- and posttraining surveys. Results: Preliminary results (first workshop Oct 2021;second scheduled March 2022) suggest clinicians agree that SDM is easy to understand, facilitate and experiment with, compatible with current practices, enable women to make more informed decisions compared with the usual approach and produce more benefit than harm. There were mixed responses about whether SDM is better than or involves major changes to current practice, will help women make choices that align with their values, or enable partnership between women and clinicians. Conclusions: The SDM training program has potential to improve clinicians' capacity for engaging woman in decisions about their care around planned birth and its timing. Further workshops, qualitative interviews with participants and a posttraining consumer survey at each site is planned for 2022.