Veterinary Clients’ and Veterinarians’ Perceptions of the Value Matrix: An Exam Room Communication Aid for Teaching and Practicing Shared Decision-Making

Shared Decision-Making (SDM) is a communication process that supports clinical decision-making by leveraging veterinary expertise and client knowledge to create feasible care plans and has been identified to have an important role in practicing the Spectrum of Care (SpoC). One decision-making aid, the Value Matrix (VM), has been developed to support student veterinarians and practicing veterinary professionals in the practice of SDM. Involving one-on-one semistructured interviews, the present study explored veterinary clients' and veterinarians' perceptions of the VM. Interviews were conducted with 21 veterinary clients and 14 veterinarians. Content analysis was performed on verbatim transcripts. All client participants (CPs) (21/21, 100%) and most veterinarian participants (VPs) (12/14, 86%) had an immediate positive reaction to a video example of the VM used in a clinical context. All participants identified advantages to using the VM in support of veterinarian-client decision-making, including the ability to involve the client, address client and patient barriers, and assist clients with information recall and understanding. CPs and VPs described some potential challenges, most commonly, fitting discussion of the VM within allotted appointment times. CPs and VPs identified that the VM would be best utilized in complex cases in which preference-sensitive decisions existed. Overall, findings suggest that the VM offers a valuable communication aid for practicing veterinary professionals to consider when engaging clients in SDM. Furthermore, with a recognized need to support teaching SDM as part of educating veterinary professionals, findings suggest the VM also offers a potential educational resource to support the teaching of SDM to student veterinarians.