Treatment Decision Making Guide
Step 10 – Make Your Decision
Use multiple questions to evaluate the medical information and your personal values and goals for treatment. This process will help you identify the treatment decisions most likely to give you peace, now and in the future.
The following questions can help you assess different treatment options, and what is best for your child and family:
Recap the situation:
- What is the specific decision you must make?
- Why do you need to make this decision?
- How long do you have to make this decision?
- What are all the treatment options?
For each option:
- What does it involve (procedures, medications, timescale, recovery etc.)?
- What are the potential benefits, risks, and side effects (short, medium, and long term)?
- Do the potential risks and side effects outweigh the potential benefits?
- How will the treatment affect your child’s health and wellbeing, sight, hearing, and physical appearance, in the short and long term?
- What monitoring will be needed during and after treatment to identify and treat side effects early?
- Do you understand all the potential implications?
- How much do the potential benefits, risks, and impacts matter to you?
- What do you think and feel about this option?
Final Evaluation
- What are your personal values and goals for treatment?
- Does one option feel more appropriate, or make more sense? Why?
- What or who is influencing your thoughts and feelings about treatment?
- Are you prioritizing your child, your emotions, or pleasing others?
- Do you have enough information, support, and advice to make your decision?
- Will it be helpful to talk with other people who have experience of retinoblastoma and these treatments (professionals, parents, survivors)?
- Which treatment has greatest potential to reflect your values and goals?
- Which treatment has greatest potential to save or protect your child’s life?
