Table 2

Factor structure of preliminary scale.

	Factor 1^a (32.0 of variance)	Factor 2^b (16.1% of variance)
General items

I am the kind of person who likes to be offered choices, rather than being told the best way forward	0.57^c	−0.35
I am the kind of person who is happy to be told what the best options are^d	0.42^c	0.49^c
I am the kind of person who feels overwhelmed by choice and would rather it could be more simple	−0.21	0.66^c
I prefer to know what options are available to me	0.82^c	−0.12

Health items

I like to know all the possible ways in which I could be treated	0.85^c	−0.08
I am not interested in finding out what all the options are for treating my problem	−0.49^c	0.36
I am happy for the doctor to make decisions for me	−0.06	0.79^c
It's not important to me to make my own healthcare decisions	−0.16	0.54
I prefer to make my own mind up about what treatment I will have	0.25	−0.47^c

↵a Factor 1 was labelled ‘having choices’.
↵b Factor 2 was labelled ‘making choices’.
↵c Factor loading >0.4.
↵d Item deleted from analysis as it did not differentiate between the two factors.