A Comparison of Ordered Categorical versus Discrete Choices within a Stated Preference Survey of Whole-Blood Donors

Zia Sadique, John Cairns, Kaat De Corte, Sarah Willis, Alec Miners, Nick Bansback and Richard Grieve
Additional contact information
Zia Sadique: Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
John Cairns: Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Kaat De Corte: Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Sarah Willis: Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Alec Miners: Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Nick Bansback: Health Services and Policy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Richard Grieve: Department of Health Services Research and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

Medical Decision Making, 2023, vol. 43, issue 3, 362-373

Abstract: There are different stated preference (SP) approaches, including discrete choice experiments (DCEs). DCEs are a popular SP approach, but in some settings, alternative ways of framing survey questions may be more appropriate. The Health Economic Modelling Of Alternative Blood Donation Strategies (HEMO) study required choice tasks to be framed so that the study could estimate the effect of attribute levels on the frequency of a behavior—in this case, blood donation. SP questions were formulated to require ordered categorical responses from a single profile of attribute levels. However, it is unknown whether this way of framing SP questions leads to estimates of marginal rates of substitution (MRS) that are different from traditional DCE choices between 2 alternative profiles. The aim of this article is to compare estimates of relative preferences from SP questions requiring ordered categorical versus discrete choice responses. We compared relative preferences elicited from the 2 approaches for a common set of attributes and levels, formulated as choice tasks for 8,933 whole-blood donors. We found that the 2 forms of survey questions provided similar MRSs estimates. For example, respondents were willing to trade off only a small increase in travel time to receive a health report, irrespective of whether the choice given was binary (DCE response; approximately 3 min) or from an ordered category (about 8 min). The finding that any differences in the estimated MRSs are not of substantive importance offers some reassurance for policy makers in that estimates of relative preference may be robust to alternative ways of framing the survey questions. These findings can encourage future studies to frame choice tasks that align with the study’s objective. Highlights This article compares the relative preferences from stated preference (SP) questions requiring ordered categorical versus discrete choice responses. The approaches were contrasted for blood donation service characteristics that offer opportunities to donate blood. The estimates of relative preferences for alternative blood donation service characteristics were similar between the 2 forms of SP approach. This study illustrates how SP survey questions can be formulated to provide responses on an ordered categorical scale and to estimate marginal rates of substitution between different attributes, which can be compared with those derived from discrete choice experiment (DCE) choices. The article highlights the potential value of considering alternative choice framings rather than relying solely on DCEs.

Keywords: blood donation; discrete choice experiments; stated preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X221145048 (text/html)

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:sae:medema:v:43:y:2023:i:3:p:362-373

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X221145048

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Medical Decision Making
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().