A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: The Role of Survey Training Materials in Stated-Preference Studies

Caroline Vass, Niall J. Davison, Geert Stichele and Katherine Payne ()
Additional contact information
Niall J. Davison: The University of Manchester
Geert Stichele: MindBytes
Katherine Payne: The University of Manchester

The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, 2020, vol. 13, issue 2, No 3, 163-173

Abstract: Abstract Background Online survey-based methods are increasingly used to elicit preferences for healthcare. This digitization creates an opportunity for interactive survey elements, potentially improving respondents’ understanding and/or engagement. Objective Our objective was to understand whether, and how, training materials in a survey influenced stated preferences. Methods An online discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was designed to elicit public preferences for a new targeted approach to prescribing biologics (“biologic calculator”) for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with conventional prescribing. The DCE presented three alternatives, two biologic calculators and a conventional approach (opt out), described by five attributes: delay to treatment, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, infection risk, and cost saving to the national health service. Respondents were randomized to receive training materials as plain text or an animated storyline. Training materials contained information about RA and approaches to treatment and described the biologic calculator. Background questions included sociodemographics and self-reported measures of task difficulty and attribute non-attendance. DCE data were analyzed using conditional and heteroskedastic conditional logit (HCL) models. Results In total, 300 respondents completed the DCE, receiving either plain text (n = 158) or the animated storyline (n = 142). The HCL showed the estimated coefficients for all attributes aligned with a priori expectations and were statistically significant. The scale term was statistically significant, indicating that respondents who received plain-text materials had more random choices. Further tests suggested preference homogeneity after accounting for differences in scale. Conclusions Using animated training materials did not change the preferences of respondents, but they appeared to improve choice consistency, potentially allowing researchers to include more complex designs with increased numbers of attributes, levels, alternatives or choice sets.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40271-019-00391-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:patien:v:13:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s40271-019-00391-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40271

DOI: 10.1007/s40271-019-00391-w

Access Statistics for this article

The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research is currently edited by Christopher I. Carswell

More articles in The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research from Springer, International Academy of Health Preference Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().