Awards & Achievements
Excellence in Research Award
2005 Recipient - Annette O'Connor
Should my child go on Ritalin? Which of the options offered by my
doctor to treat my cancer should I
choose? Should I move my family
across the country to take a new job?
Every day, countless people are faced with making major decisions
in
their lives. “I hated making tough decisions,” says Dr. Annette
O’Connor, “especially without the right information and the right tools
to weigh
the positive and negative consequences.”
Motivated by her own frustrations, O’Connor, recipient of the
University of Ottawa’s 2005
Researcher of the Year award, has devoted
her research to making the decision-making process a little bit easier
for people.
O’Connor
is a professor at the School of Nursing in the Faculty of
Health Sciences as well as a a senior scientist in clinical
epidemiology at the Ottawa
Health Research Institute. She has spent
over 20 years researching how people make important decisions and
subsequently, in developing tools to help
people improve their
decision-making. She also has worked to create tools to help health
care workers guide people in deliberating over important
decisions.
“By creating tools that help people to fully understand the options
they have, and to prioritize which benefits and harms
matter most to
them, they are better prepared to make major decisions with their
health practitioner,” says O’Connor. “Patients need the
latest
information and practitioners need to know what matters most to
informed patients.”
Decision aids present the facts about
options, outcomes and
probabilities. Some aids are self-directed and others are administered
by health professionals who coach patients through a
decision-making
process.
A recent large project involved the Arthritis Society, a consumer
group, and international
researchers who summarized the evidence on
options for 15 common muscle and joint problems ranging from arthritis
to tennis elbow. Over 15 decision
aids were created in six months.
As part of another project at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
in New Hampshire, every woman
diagnosed with breast cancer sees a video
decision aid on lumpectomy versus mastectomy and answers questions on a
touch screen. The responses are
summarized for the surgeon including
the woman’s preferred role in decision-making, her understanding of
options, and the outcomes that matter most to
her. This information
then serves as the basis for future doctor-patient consultations.
Although most of the work done by Professor
O’Connor focuses on
health care decisions, the tools can often be used when facing other
big life decisions, such as how many children to have or what
career to
pursue.
O’Connor’s new challenge is wide scale implementation. She leads an
international network that is developing a
global inventory of decision
aids, along with standards, training programs, and rapid-response
methods to keep pace with changing information and
options.
The University of Ottawa, the Association of Professors of the
University of Ottawa (APUO), and the University of Ottawa
Alumni
Association sponsor the University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in
Research. The award recognizes contributions to research that
bring
distinction for the researcher and the University.