People living with Moderate-to-Severe COPD Prefer Improvement of Daily Symptoms Over the Improvement of Exacerbations: A Multi-Country Patient Preference Study

Development of a disease-specific health utility score for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from a discrete choice experiment patient preference study

OBJECTIVES

While patient input to health technology assessment (HTA) has traditionally been of a qualitative nature, there is increasing interest to integrate quantitative evidence from patient preference studies into HTA decision making. Preference data can be used to generate disease-specific health utility data. We generated a health utility score for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and consider its use within HTAs.

METHODS

Based on qualitative research, six symptoms were identified as important to COPD patients: shortness of breath, exacerbations, chronic cough, mucus secretion, sleep disturbance, and urinary incontinence. We employed a discrete choice experiment (DCE) and the random parameter logistic regression technique to estimate utility scores for all COPD health states. The relationship between patients' COPD health utility scores, self-perceived COPD severity, and EQ-5D-3L utility scores was analyzed, with data stratified according to disease severity and comorbidity subgroups.

RESULTS

The COPD health utility score had face validity, with utility scores negatively correlated with patients' self-perceived COPD severity. The correlation between the COPD health utility scores and EQ-5D-3L values was only moderate. While patient EQ-5D-3L scores were impacted by comorbidities, the COPD health utility score was less impacted by comorbid conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

Our COPD utility measure, derived from a DCE, provides a patient-centered health utility score and is more sensitive to the COPD health of the individual and less sensitive to other comorbidities. This disease-specific instrument should be considered alongside generic health-related quality of life instruments when valuing new COPD therapies in submissions to licensing and reimbursement agencies.

Research Priorities to Increase Confidence in and Acceptance of Health Preference Research: What Questions Should be Prioritized Now?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

There has been an increase in the study and use of stated-preference methods to inform medicine development decisions. The objective of this study was to identify prioritized topics and questions relating to health preferences based on the perspective of members of the preference research community.

METHODS

Preference research stakeholders from industry, academia, consultancy, health technology assessment/regulatory, and patient organizations were recruited using professional networks and preference-targeted e-mail listservs and surveyed about their perspectives on 19 topics and questions for future studies that would increase acceptance of preference methods and their results by decision makers. The online survey consisted of an initial importance prioritization task, a best-worst scaling case 1 instrument, and open-ended questions. Rating counts were used for analysis. The best-worst scaling used a balanced incomplete block design.

RESULTS

One hundred and one participants responded to the survey invitation with 66 completing the best-worst scaling. The most important research topics related to the synthesis of preferences across studies, transferability across populations or related diseases, and method topics including comparison of methods and non-discrete choice experiment methods. Prioritization differences were found between respondents whose primary affiliation was academia versus other stakeholders. Academic researchers prioritized methodological/less studied topics; other stakeholders prioritized applied research topics relating to consistency of practice.

CONCLUSIONS

As the field of health preference research grows, there is a need to revisit and communicate previous work on preference selection and study design to ensure that new stakeholders are aware of this work and to update these works where necessary. These findings might encourage discussion and alignment among different stakeholders who might hold different research priorities. Research on the application of previous preference research to new contexts will also help increase the acceptance of health preference information by decision makers.

Real-world evidence generation from patients, their caregivers and physicians supporting clinical, regulatory and guideline decisions: an update on Disease Specific Programmes

OBJECTIVE

To update on and describe the role of Disease Specific Programmes (DSPs), a multi-perspective real-world data (RWD) source, in the context of the evolution of the value and acceptance of real-world evidence (RWE) in clinical, regulatory and guideline decision-making.

METHODS

DSPs are multi-national, multi-subscriber, multi-therapy cross-sectional surveys incorporating retrospective data collection from patient, caregiver and physician perspectives. Information collected covers the patient journey, including treatment/prescribing patterns and rationale, patient-reported outcomes, impact on work and everyday activities, attitudes towards and perceptions of the condition, adherence to treatment and burden of illness. Published peer-reviewed DSP papers were aligned with current key RWE themes identified in the literature, alongside their contribution to RWE.

RESULTS

RWE themes examined were: using RWE to inform clinical practice, patient and caregiver engagement, RWE role in supporting health technology assessments and regulatory submissions, informing value-driven healthcare decisions, real-world patient subgroup differences and therapeutic inertia/unmet needs; highlighting patients' and caregivers' experience of living with a disease, disconnect from their physicians, unmet needs and educational gaps.

CONCLUSIONS

DSPs provide a wealth of RWD in addition to evidence generated by registries, clinical trials and observational research, with wide use for the pharmaceutical industry, government, funding/regulatory bodies, clinical practice guideline insights and, most importantly, informing improvements in people's lives. The depth, breadth and heritage of information collected via DSPs since 1995 is unparalleled, extending understanding of how diseases are managed by physicians in routine clinical practice and why treatment choices are made, patients' perceptions of their disease management, and caregiver burden.