New study on barriers and facilitators in implementing shared decision-making
In a new study, Ulla-Karin Schön at the Department of Social Work, together with Amanda Jones and Maria Fjellfeldt at Dalarna University, examines how staff experience the implementation of shared decision-making within the field of comorbidity. The study focuses on collaboration between social services and healthcare in supporting people with complex needs.
Shared Decision-Making (SDM) aims to strengthen user participation by ensuring that decisions about care and support are made jointly by professionals and users. The researchers followed the implementation of this approach within coordinated individual planning (CIP) and collected both survey and interview data from staff working in social services and healthcare.
The results show that high workloads, uncertainty about what user participation means in practice, and weak relationships between different services can hinder implementation. At the same time, the process is facilitated when there is already well-functioning collaboration, prior experience with the method, and a clear prioritization of user participation.
The study highlights that relationships are a key condition for shared decision-making to work in practice. When collaboration between services is stable and based on trust, the chances of making the user a genuine partner in decision-making increase—not only in theory, but also in everyday practice.
Last updated: 2026-03-05
Source: Department of Social Work