Shared decision-making and detection of comorbidities in an online acromegaly consultation with and without the Acromegaly Disease Activity Tool ACRODAT® using the simulated person approach.

Objective: A patient-centered approach to the management of acromegaly includes disease activity control, shared decision-making and identification of comorbidities. The Acromegaly Disease Activity Tool (ACRODAT^®) is intended to assist physicians in providing such holistic management. The present study investigated this claim using the simulated person (SP) approach.

Methods: We studied patient-doctor interaction via online video consultation in a randomized prospective study design with SPs trained to simulate a specific acromegaly profile. We analyzed the proportion of conversation time devoted to health content and the specific acromegaly and comorbidity relevant categories mentioned in the conversation. We collected physicians' feedback on the usefulness of ACRODAT^®, SPs subjective perception of the quality of the conversation and compared consultations with and without ACRODAT^® using a qualitative approach.

Results: The sample (N = 30) consisted of endocrinologists treating patients with acromegaly in Germany. For SP-physician interactions (N = 60), the proportion of time spent on conversation content (e.g. IGF-I, quality of life) was distributed according to the focus of the patient profile. Comorbidities were less well identified than the need for a change in therapy. Only 18.3% of the SPs were actively asked to participate in the decision-making process. ACRODAT^® did not lead to any significant differences in the course of the discussion.

Conclusions: Shared decision-making was underrepresented in this SP-physician interaction in acromegaly management. Physicians adapted the content of the discussion to the SP's needs, but did not adequately address comorbidities. According to the analysis criteria used, ACRODAT^® did not contribute to a more holistic patient management in the present study.