Economic Evaluation of a Multistage Shared Decision-making Program for Type 2 Diabetes: a Pilot Study

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a highly prevalent disease, affecting over a million Dutch citizens, leading to severe micro- and macrovascular complications, reduced quality of life, and high healthcare costs. Clinical guidelines recommend a person-centered approach to improve (health)outcomes. However, with rapidly increasing treatment options, both in terms of medication and lifestyle interventions, shared decision making (SDM) is challenging in practice. Therefore, researchers have developed a multistage SDM program consisting of an online patient decision aid for type 2 diabetes mellitus, training for healthcare professionals in SDM, and a preparatory consult to provide patients with the knowledge and confidence to participate in SDM. Strong evidence of (cost)-effectiveness is a key requirement to achieve broad implementation of this program. This pilot study represents an important initial step towards high-quality economic evaluation research, with a focus on the diversity of the study population, burden on participating healthcare practices, and feasibility of outcome measurement.