Shared decision making (SDM) is increasingly recognized as a cornerstone of person-centered care, yet many cardiovascular clinical practice guidelines merely emphasize the importance of patient preferences without addressing how to integrate them into everyday clinical decision making [1,2]. SDM is a collaborative process in which patients and clinicians work together to understand the individual care situation and develop treatment plans aligned with the patient´s preferences, values, and goals [3]. Effective and responsive communication is a critical prerequisite for SDM, fostering trust, mutual respect, and a sense of partnership. Conversely, poor communication can lead to dissatisfaction, disengagement, discontinuity of care, and diminished patient autonomy, eventually hindering SDM [4].

This study explored patients’ experiences of patient-clinician communication in lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD) care. To address this, we conducted a secondary qualitative analysis to expand findings on patient-clinician communication that emerged in a qualitative study on health-related behavior, beliefs, and reasoning regarding secondary preventive therapy in patients with PAD [5].