This comprehensive reference delves into the complex process of medical decision making¿both the nuts-and-bolts access and insurance issues that guide choices and the cognitive and affective factors that can make patients decide against their best interests. Wide-ranging coverage offers a robust evidence base for understanding decision making across the lifespan, among family members, in the context of evolving healthcare systems, and in the face of life-changing diagnosis. The section on applied decision making reviews the effectiveness of decision-making tools in healthcare, featuring real-world examples and guidelines for tailored communications with patients. Throughout, contributors spotlight the practical importance of the field and the pressing need to strengthen health decision-making skills on both sides of the clinician/client dyad.Among the Handbook¿s topics: From laboratory to clinic and back: connecting neuroeconomic and clinical measures of decision-making dysfunctions. Strategies to promote the maintenance of behavior change: moving from theoretical principles to practices.Shared decision making and the patient-provider relationship.Overcoming the many pitfalls of communicating risk. Evidence-based medicine and decision-making policy.The internet, social media, and health decision making.The Handbook of Health Decision Science will interest a wide span of professionals, among them health and clinical psychologists, behavioral researchers, health policymakers, and sociologists.

Provides a comprehensive examination of health care decision making from theoretical and applied perspectives

p; Legal aspects of decision making for health care providers.- Part V. Applied decision making.- 16.  Decision tools in shared decision making for patients.- 17.  Decision tools for health care professionals.- 18.  Integration of decision tools in the health care environment: The example of Kaiser Permanente.- 19.  The VA as an example of an integration decision tools for patients and physicians.- Part VI. The communication of decisions.- 20.  Graphical and numerical communication.- 21.  Health literacy and numeracy.- Part VII. Decision making on the organizational level.- 22.  Decision making using Electronic Medical records.- 23.  Decision making on the practice level.- Part VIII. Decision making on the state and national health policy environment.- 24.  How health policy gets made.- 25.  Recent changes in the health care environment.- Part IX. The future of decision making.- 26.  The promise of New Media: savior or curse?- 27. Social networks and the power of many.- 28.  Decision making in the age of genome wide sequencing.