Treatment Decision Making in Early-Stage Prostate Cancer

We plan to test the effectiveness of a recently developed computer-based program that is designed to improve patient knowledge about prostate cancer treatments. It is also designed to help men clarify their values using a computer-based 'decision aid.' A decision aid gives patients tools to help them understand their own values and how these values may be related to their choice of different forms of therapy for prostate cancer. In order to test the effectiveness of the decision aid, men will be assigned on a chance basis to receive either 1) the computer program that includes the information about prostate cancer treatments alone, or 2) the computer program that contains both the information and the decision aid. We expect that men in decision aid group will be more active in their treatment decision and will have improved knowledge, quality of life, and satisfaction with the treatment decision relative to men who only receive the information.