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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2023 Aug 29;13(8):e066157.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-066157.

Patient preferences for stress urinary incontinence treatments: a discrete choice experiment

Dwayne Boyers  1 , Mary Kilonzo  2 , Tracey Davidson  3 , David Cooper  3 , Judith Wardle  4 , Kiron Bhal  5 , James N'Dow  6 , Graeme MacLennan  3 , John Norrie  7 , Mohamed Abdel-Fattah  8
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Patient preferences for stress urinary incontinence treatments: a discrete choice experiment

Dwayne Boyers et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: To elicit and value patient preferences for the processes and outcomes of surgical management of stress urinary incontinence in women.

Design: A discrete choice experiment survey to elicit preferences for type of anaesthesia, postoperative recovery time, treatment success, adverse events, impact on daily activities and cost. An experimental design generated 40 choice tasks, and each respondent completed 1 block of 10 and 2 validity tests. Analysis was by multinomial logistical regression.

Setting: N=21 UK hospitals.

Participants: N=325 adult women who were a subsample of those randomised to the single-incision mini-slings clinical trial.

Outcomes: Patient preferences; valuation obtained using willingness to pay.

Results: N=227 of 325 (70%) returned a questionnaire, and 94% of those completed all choice tasks. Respondents preferred general anaesthesia, shorter recovery times, improved stress urinary incontinence symptoms and avoidance of adverse events. Women were willing to pay (mean (95% CI)) £76 (£33 to £119) per day of reduction in recovery time following surgery. They valued increases in Patient Global Impression of Improvement, ranging from £8173 (£5459 to £10 887) for 'improved' to £11 706 (£8267 to £15 144) for 'very much improved' symptoms, compared with no symptom improvement. This was offset by negative values attached to the avoidance of complications ranging between £-8022 (£-10 661 to £-5383) and £-10 632 (£-14 077 to £-7187) compared to no complications. Women valued treatments that reduced the need to avoid daily activities, with willingness to pay ranging from £-967 (£-2199 to £266) for rarely avoiding activities to £-5338 (£-7258 to £-3417) for frequently avoiding daily activities compared with no avoidance.

Conclusion: This discrete choice experiment demonstrates that patients place considerable value on improvement in stress urinary incontinence symptoms and avoidance of treatment complications. Trade-offs between symptom improvement and adverse event risk should be considered within shared decision-making. The willingness to pay values from this study can be used in future cost-benefit analyses.

Trial registration number: ISRCTN: 93264234; Post-results.

Keywords: health economics; health policy; surgery; urinary incontinences.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: DB reports grants from UK NIHR during the conduct of the study. KB has been a speaker and trainer for the following companies in the past: Astellas, Pfizer, AMS, Contura, Allergan and others, where he received honoraria and sponsorship towards attending scientific conferences. JN'D reports HTA General Committee 2016–2018. GM reports grants from UK NIHR during the conduct of the study. JN reports grants from University of Edinburgh, outside the submitted work; and past and present member of the following: HTA Commissioning Sub-Board (EOI), NIHR CTU Standing Advisory Committee, NIHR HTA & EME Editorial Board, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Impact Review Panel, EME Strategy Advisory Committee, EME-Funding Committee Members, EME Funding Committee Sub-Group Remit & Comp Check, HTA General Committee, HTA Funding Committee Policy Group (formerly CSG), HTA Commissioning Committee, HTA Post-funding committee teleconference 2016–2019 and COVID-19 reviewing 2020. MA-F reports none in the last 5 years. Before 2015, he has been a speaker, consultant and/or surgical trainer for a number of industrial companies (Astellas, Ethicon, Bard, Pfizer, AMS, Coloplast and others); has reimbursed his travel expenses and on occasions received personal honoraria, proctorship fees and sponsorship towards attending scientific conferences; received research grant from Coloplast managed by University of Aberdeen. Moreover, his limited number of trainees attended pharmaceutical sponsored educational/leadership workshops and/or received assistance towards presenting their research work in scientific conferences. He was also Chairman of the Scottish Pelvic Floor Network (SPFN), which at the time, received financial sponsorship from various industrial companies (including all those mentioned above) and non-profit organisations for its annual meetings and surgical workshops. The SPFN provided an educational grant funding the PI at the highest recruiting site to attend the International Continence Society annual scientific conference in Brazil in 2014. At present, he receives travel sponsorship and occasionally speaker’s fees from numerous national and international conferences and non-profit organisations when invited as guest speaker and/or expert surgeon. In 2019, and at the request from NHS Grampian, he attended two educational meetings for setting up sacral nerve stimulation service partially funded by Medtronic. He is the Chief Investigator for four NIHR-HTA-funded studies. He does not hold (and never held) any shares (or similar) in any of the industrial companies (medical or non-medical). To the best of his knowledge, none of the above have influenced his research or clinical practice. No other authors declared any potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example choice task.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Respondents’ perceptions and views on the survey.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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