Patient preferences in allergy immunotherapy (AIT) in Germany – a discrete-choice-experiment

Kathrin Damm, Janina Volk (), Andreas Horn, Jean-Pierre Allam, Ninette Troensegaard-Petersen, Niels Serup-Hansen, Thomas Winkler, Ivonne Thiessen, Kathrin Borchert, Eike G. Wüstenberg and Thomas Mittendorf
Additional contact information
Kathrin Damm: Leibniz University Hannover
Janina Volk: ALK-Abelló Arzneimittel GmbH
Andreas Horn: ENT Practice am Neckar Dres. Zeuner, Horn & Vasvari
Jean-Pierre Allam: University of Bonn
Ninette Troensegaard-Petersen: ALK-Abelló
Niels Serup-Hansen: ALK-Abelló
Thomas Winkler: ALK-Abelló Arzneimittel GmbH
Ivonne Thiessen: ALK-Abelló Arzneimittel GmbH
Kathrin Borchert: Xcenda GmbH
Eike G. Wüstenberg: ALK-Abelló Arzneimittel GmbH
Thomas Mittendorf: Xcenda GmbH

Health Economics Review, 2016, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Background Allergic Rhinitis (AR) is a common disorder in Europe with Allergic Asthma (AA) as a frequent comorbidity. Allergy immunotherapy (AIT) is the only causal therapy of AR and AA, and can be administered as subcutaneous injections at the physician or as sublingual drops or tablets at home. The usual treatment duration is 3 years. Objective This study aimed to elicit patient preferences to identify the AIT administration mode preferred by patients. Methods A discrete-choice-experiment (DCE) was developed to determine how people weight different treatment options using a paper-based questionnaire from June to September 2014, including 16 study centres. Main inclusion criteria: >18 years, grass, birch and/or house dust mite AR with moderate to severe symptoms, AIT-naïve and AIT-indicated. DCE-attributes were: Administration form, number and duration of physician visits, frequency of life-threatening anaphylactic shocks, local side-effects and co-payments. Results Two-hundred thirty-nine subjects participated, resulting in analysable 1842 choices. All attributes were significant predictors for the treatment-choice. Ranked by importance, the following first three attributes are most preferred by patients: 1st Number and duration of physician visits: Fewer visits with shorter duration preferred (0.658*) 2nd Frequency of life-threatening anaphylactic shocks: Lower risk of shocks preferred (0.285*) 3rd Local side-effects: Preference for rash/swelling on upper arm over itching/swelling under the tongue (0.210*) (*coefficient-size represents relative importance of the attributes) Conclusion The most important attribute is the number and duration of visits to a physician. A lower risk of life-threatening anaphylactic shocks was ranked as the second whereas co-payments and administration form play a limited role.

Keywords: Allergic rhinitis; Allergy immunotherapy; Discrete-choice-experiment; Patient preferences; Sublingual immunotherapy-tablet (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s13561-016-0110-x Abstract (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:spr:hecrev:v:6:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1186_s13561-016-0110-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/13561

DOI: 10.1186/s13561-016-0110-x

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics Review is currently edited by J. Matthias Graf von der Schulenburg

More articles in Health Economics Review from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().