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We have no clear overview of the extent to which health‐care providers involve patients in the decision‐making process during consultations. The Observing Patient Involvement in Decision Making instrument (OPTION) was designed to assess this.

To systematically review studies that used the OPTION instrument to observe the extent to which health‐care providers involve patients in decision making across a range of clinical contexts, including different health professions and lengths of consultation.

We conducted online literature searches in multiple databases (2001–12) and gathered further data through networking.

(i) OPTION scores as reported outcomes and (ii) health‐care providers and patients as study participants. For analysis, we only included studies using the revised scale.

Extracted data included: (i) study and participant …