Methods for Conducting Stated Preference Research with Children and Adolescents in Health: A Scoping Review of the Application of Discrete Choice Experiments

Patient preferences and willingness to pay for transitional care in breast cancer: a discrete choice experiment

PURPOSE

Most chemotherapy reactions occur outside of the hospital; therefore, providing transitional care (TC) to patients is essential. However, patients' preferences for TC remain poorly understood. This study aims to investigate the preferences and willingness to pay for TC among breast cancer patients.

METHODS

Data were collected using a discrete choice experiment from a large general hospital in North China. The study used six attributes to describe the preferences of patients for TC. Conditional logit and mixed logit models were applied to assess patient preferences, estimate willingness to pay, and simulate uptake probabilities across different scenarios.

RESULTS

A total of 261 respondents completed the survey. The study showed that patients strongly preferred a TC to be provided by a specialist doctor and specialist nurse (β = 0.925; p < 0.001) and were willing to pay CNY¥105.381. The service content most preferred was symptom management, psychological care, and rehabilitation guidance (β = 0.286; p < 0.001), and patients were willing to pay CNY¥32.606. The forms of services most preferred were at outpatient clinics (β = 0.239; p < 0.001), and patients were willing to pay CNY¥27.285. Low out-of-pocket expense was preferred by patients (β = - 0.009; p < 0.001). When TC was provided by a specialist doctor and specialist nurse in an outpatient clinic in conjunction with multidimensional care services and out-of-pocket payment of CNY¥20 per visit, the probability of breast cancer patients' participation increased to 91.39%.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study suggest that breast cancer patients have strong preferences for the provider, content, and form of transitional care (TC), as well as for minimizing out-of-pocket costs.

Central European journal of operations research (CJOR) "operations research applied to health services (ORAHS) in Europe: general trends and ORAHS 2020 conference in Vienna, Austria"

This articles provides a short summary of the research topics and latest research results of the European Working Group "Operations Research Applied to Health Services" (ORAHS) organized as an e-conference in Juli 2020 at the University of Vienna, Austria (https://orahs2020.univie.ac.at/). Furthermore, challenges for OR in health care including application areas, decision support systems, general trends, and modelling techniques are briefly illustrated from an European and international perspective by providing selected essential literature reviews.