Abstract: Objective: To evaluate the impact of decision aids on the treatment decision-making in elderly patients, with the aim of providing evidence support for healthcare professionals to carry out the application of decision aids in clinical settings. Methods: Computerized search of Chinese and English databases for Randomized Controlled Trials on the effects of decision aids on treatment decision-making in elderly patients. The search period was from November 2012 to November 2022. After independent review of literature, data extraction and literature quality assessment by two investigators, data were Meta-analyzed using RevMan 5.3 software. Results: Totally 12 researches with a total of 1317 elderly patients were included. The results of Meta-analysis showed that decision aids could reduce the level of decision conflict, increase decision knowledge (P<0.05), but there was no statistic significance in reducing decision regret and improving decision satisfaction in elderly patients (P>0.05). Conclusion: Decision aids can improve the quality of decision-making in elderly patients, there are still controversies on reducing decision regret and improving decision satisfaction in the older adults, and it is recommended that more large-scale, high-quality studies be conducted in the future to further verify their effectiveness.

Key words: decision aid; elderly; treatment decision-making; Meta-analysis