How do I decide?

If you are sick or have a health problem, in some cases you can decide between different treatments. Often it is easy: either there is a treatment that is clearly right for you – or none of the options is worth the trouble or justifies possible adverse effects.

Yet sometimes you will have to make a choice. Then you have to compare different treatments and weigh their possible benefits and harms against one another. It is not always easy to make such a decision. It can help to have some basic questions guide you on your way to a decision.

We have put together some questions we find useful for preparing this kind of decision. These questions can be grouped according to two different stages of decision-making.

1. Collecting information: the first stage is about finding the information you need to make a decision.
2. Evaluating information: Assessing and weighing the information you have collected comes next. Eventually, the aim is to evaluate information in such a way that you can arrive at a decision that suits you best.

In many cases, the stages of collecting and evaluating information overlap. However, we have deliberately decided to describe these two processes as separate stages to show the chronological order and their differences more clearly:

How do I decide: Collecting information

How do I decide: Evaluating information

Additionally, we describe how we take these topics into account at Informed Health Online:

How do I decide: How can Informed Health Online help?


Author: Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG)

© IQWiG (Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care) Last update of this website: 05/22/2012