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. 2025 Feb 7;42(2):cmae050.
doi: 10.1093/fampra/cmae050.

Patient preferences for conservative treatment of shoulder pain: a discrete choice experiment

Annelotte H C Versloot  1 , Jorien Veldwijk  2 , Ramon P G Ottenheijm  3 , Marloes de Graaf  4 , Daniëlle A van der Windt  5 , Bart W Koes  1   6 , Jos Runhaar  1 , Dieuwke Schiphof  1
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Patient preferences for conservative treatment of shoulder pain: a discrete choice experiment

Annelotte H C Versloot et al. Fam Pract. .

Abstract

Background: Shoulder pain is common amongst adults, but little is known about patients' preferences.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine patients' preferences for treatment options offered for shoulder pain in primary care.

Methods: A discrete choice experiment was used to investigate these preferences. Adults with shoulder pain were asked to make 12 choices between two treatment options, or to opt-out. The attributes of the 12 treatment options were presented as varying in: treatment effectiveness (50%, 70%, or 90%), risk of relapse (10%, 20%, or 30%), time to pain reduction (2 or 6 weeks), prevention of relapse (yes/no), requiring injection (yes/no), and including physiotherapy (none, 6, or 12 sessions). A conditional logit model with latent class analysis was used for the analysis and a class assignment model.

Results: Three hundred and twelve participants completed the questionnaire with mean age of 52 ± 15.2 years. Latent class analysis revealed three groups. Group 1 preferred to opt-out, unless the attributes were highly favorable (90% effectiveness). Group 2 preferred treatment, but not an injection. Group 3 preferred to opt-out and did not opt for treatment. The likelihood of a participant belonging to one of these groups was 68.8%, 9.3%, and 21.9%, respectively. The class assignment was related to having previously received injection or physiotherapy, as they did not prefer that same treatment again.

Conclusion: This study showed that most patients with shoulder pain prefer to opt-out, unless treatment attributes are highly favorable. Characteristics of influence on this decision was whether the patient had received an injection or physiotherapy before.

Keywords: conservative treatment; decision making; exercise therapy; patient preference; primary health care; shoulder pain.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Relative importance of attributes separately for all classes of the latent class model as well as adjusted for class probability based on a discrete choice experiment on treatment preferences for patients with shoulder pain including 312 patients with current shoulder pain or shoulder pain in the past 2 years (2023).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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