EDITORIAL
EBN notebook
Using decision analysis to integrate evidence into decision making
Department of Health Sciences and Hull York Medical School; University of York; York, UK
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
One of the challenges of evidence-based nursing is incorporating evidence from research and patient preferences for decision options into our decision making. In this Notebook, we show how using the approach of decision analysis can help nurses make evidence-based decisions.
Decision analysis originates from a view of how decisions should be made if a decision maker is logical and rational. This process is called Subjective Expected Utility Theory. From its normative perspective, Subjective Expected Utility Theory stipulates that individuals should "maximise" their expected utility by choosing the decision option that has the highest probability of leading to an outcome that most corresponds with their personal values or beliefs.1
In decision analysis, the decision problem is structured using a decision tree, in which the probability and utility (value) associated with each outcome is determined, and the "best" decision for the individual is calculated. By deriving probabilities from high-quality
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