Avoidance of weight gain is important for oral type 2 diabetes treatments in Sweden and Germany: patient preferences

Abstract

Aims: The aim of the study was to quantify patient preferences for outcomes associated with oral antidiabetic medications (OAMs) in Sweden and Germany through a discrete-choice experiment.

Methods: Adults taking OAMs who had a self-reported physician's diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) made a series of nine choices between pairs of hypothetical profiles. Each profile had a predefined range of attributes: blood glucose control, frequency of mild-to-moderate hypoglycaemia, annual severe hypoglycaemic events, annual weight gain, pill burden and frequency of administration, and cost. Choice questions were based on an experimental design with known statistical properties. Bivariate probit analysis estimated the probabilities of choice of medication administration from patient characteristics and, conditional on that choice, preferences for treatment outcomes.

Results: The final sample consisted of 188 Swedish and 195 German patients. For both countries, weight gain was the most important attribute, followed by blood glucose control. Avoiding a 5-kg weight gain was 1.5 times more important in Sweden and 2.3 times more important in Germany than achieving moderate blood glucose control, thereby, suggesting that blood glucose control is relatively more important to Swedish than to German patients. Least important outcomes were the number of daily pills (Sweden) and frequency of mild-to-moderate hypoglycaemia (Germany).

Conclusion: Patients in both Sweden and Germany preferred OAMs not associated with weight gain.

Keywords: Analyse conjointe; Choice-format conjoint analysis; Discrete-choice experiment; Oral antidiabetic medication; Patient preferences; Préférences des patients; Traitements antidiabétiques oraux.