How important is the opinion of significant others to cancer patients' adjuvant chemotherapy decision-making?

Objective: Decisions regarding adjuvant chemotherapy are difficult, since value tradeoffs are involved. Little is known about the importance of the significant others in patients' decision-making regarding adjuvant treatment. We surveyed patients with breast and colorectal cancer about the importance they assigned to the opinions of their significant others and assessed correlates of these importance scores.

Methods: One hundred and twenty-three patients rated on a five-point scale how much they cared about the opinion of six significant others.

Results: Most important was the opinion of their treating specialist, followed by that of their partner, children, other family, friends, and colleagues. Women assigned higher scores to the opinion of their children, younger patients to that of their specialist, and patients who were about to undergo chemotherapy to that of their family. Patients with breast cancer and patients without paid employment assigned slightly more importance to the opinion of their partner.

Conclusions: Information on the influence of significant others may help clinicians when involving patients in treatment decision-making and discussing patients' treatment preferences.