Table 2.

What Elements Should a Roadmap Include? Comparing Roadmaps to Decision Aids (DAs) Using the International Patient Decision Aids Standards Instrument (IPDASi)

	IPDASi Criteria	Included in a Roadmap?	Comments
Information about options	Describes health condition or problem	Yes	Important feature of a roadmap
	Describes a decision	Yes, qualified	A Roadmap can highlight decisions to come, and can direct users to DAs that provide more detail
	Describes options available	Yes, qualified	A Roadmap might describe general treatment options, for example, medications that might be prescribed, but should avoid providing too much detail (see below)
	Describes natural course of health condition or problem	Yes	Important feature of a roadmap; this is something that roadmaps should do well
	Describes positive and negative features of each option	No	Roadmaps can highlight decisions to come, but will generally not provide detailed information about specific decisions (a task better suited to a DA)
	Makes it possible to compare features	No
	Shows negative and positive features with equal detail	No
Probabilities of outcomes	Provides information about outcome probabilities; specifies groups for whom outcome applies, rates of outcomes, time periods, and presents probabilities in multiple formats	No	Roadmaps should avoid providing details such as probabilities. Detailed information about specific options, such as probabilities, is unlikely to be read by a patient who has not reached that point in the road. Roadmaps can refer patients to DAs when available and appropriate.
Values	Helps patients imagine what it is like to experience physical, psychological, and social effects of options	Yes, qualified	Rather than effects of specific options, a Roadmap could help patients imagine what it is like to experience the disease at different points in time and given different treatment paths
	Asks patients to think about what matters most to them	Yes, qualified	A Roadmap should provide values clarification, but should be related to broad goals and preferences rather than preferences for discrete treatment options
Decision guidance	Provides step-by-step way to make a decision	No	A Roadmap does not address a specific decision
	Includes worksheets or questions to use when talking with provider	Yes, qualified	Could help patients articulate their goals and values related to their care trajectory
Development	Finding out what patients need	Yes	Patients should be involved in the development process, to identify what information they need and how to organize and present it optimally
	Finding out what health professionals need	Yes	Health professionals should be involved to identify key areas of communication difficulty, such as managing patient expectations
	Expert review by patients and health professionals not involved in developing the tool	Yes	Important aspect of Roadmap development
	Field tested	Yes	Important aspect of Roadmap development
Plain language	Reports readability levels	Yes	Important aspect of Roadmap development and readability should be at 7th grade or below
Decision support tool evaluation	There is evidence that the tool helps patients improve their knowledge	Yes	Roadmaps should improve knowledge about disease and accurate expectations for the future
	There is evidence that the tool improves the match between the features that matter most to the patient and the option chosen	Yes, qualified	In a Roadmap, the “option chosen” may be reconceptualized as the path taken, for example, an aggressive, life-sustaining path versus a less intensive treatment path