[Patients' preferences and decision-making: state of the art and applications in cancer]. / Préférences des patients et prise de décision : état des lieux et retour d'expérience en cancérologie.

BACKGROUND: This paper deals with the physician-patient encounter. In France, the current legal framework allows patients to be informed (patients' rights to health information) and to participate to decisions regarding their own health. In such a context, this paper aims to give the reader the broad key components of the so-called 'patient treatment preferences elicitation process' in breast cancer, our research area. METHODS AND RESULTS: We first present the general context, with a definition of the different physician-patient models. We then present decision aids, tools that aim to provide high-quality information to patients in the decision-making process. Finally, based on our previous studies and on examples drawn from the international literature, we present the empirical process of patients' preferences elicitation, which not only increases patients' knowledge of and satisfaction with the decision made, but also allows patients to be part of their disease management. CONCLUSION: Far from being a phenomenon in the air supported by a legal system, this method developed in the 90s allows patients and more generally healthcare users to be autonomous without constraining them to a choice.

[Knowledge and preferences of the patients about medical information: a study on 700 patients in a regional comprehensive cancer centre]. / Connaissances et préférences des patients sur le droit à l'information médicale: enquête auprès de 700 patients dans un centre régional de lutte contre le cancer.

Information is an important part of the patient care in oncology. The role and objectives of patient information were determined by a law passed in March 2002. This study investigates the knowledge of the patients about their rights and their views on what they consider most important. Information about health status and treatments is considered a priority (92.8% of respondents). The majority of patients whish to be given every information about their disease and treatments. On the contrary only 6.7% would rather receive less precise information tailored to what they want to know. Keeping control on the communication of their health information to relatives and other doctors is the option preferred by the majority of patients. Fifty two per cent of the persons are reluctant to be given medical information on the telephone. However opinions differ among social classes since 62% of patients from the upper classes consider it positively. This study demonstrates that the 2002 law is, in its broad outlines, a good response to patient's information needs.