Abstract
Background
Given the large armamentarium of therapies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), physicians cannot fully describe all treatments to patients and, therefore, make assumptions regarding treatment attributes communicated to patients. This study aimed to assess out-of-pocket willingness-to-pay that IBD patients allocate to treatment attributes.
Methods
Adult patients receiving therapy for IBD were invited to access a cross-sectional web-based discrete-choice experiment (May 22–August 31, 2015) that presented paired medication scenarios with varying efficacy, safety, and administration parameters. Preference weights and willingness-to-pay for each attribute level were assessed by a hierarchical Bayes method including a multinomial logit model.
Results
A total of 586 IBD patients were included, 404 (68.9%) with Crohn’s disease and 182 (31.1%) with ulcerative colitis. Genders were evenly distributed; the majority of patients (70.1%) were 50 years or younger and had postsecondary education (75.4%), while the median health status was 7 (Likert scale: 1 [poor] – 10 [perfect]). Regarding relative preference-weight estimates, for the average respondent, reducing pain during administration, mucosal healing, and symptom relief were the highest-ranking attributes. Conversely, infusion reactions and risk of hospitalization or surgery were the lowest-ranking attributes. In multivariate analysis, patient sociodemographics did not affect the rank order of attributes although small differences were observed between asymptomatic and symptomatic patients in the previous year.
Conclusion
This study has important implications related to understanding patient preferences and designing patient-centered strategies. IBD patients prioritize treatments with low administration pain. Additionally, these results concur with treatment guidelines emphasizing patients’ preference for mucosal healing and symptom control.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Dr Angela Karellis and Ms Clare Pollock for manuscript writing support.
Disclosure
Martin Williamson, Dorota Dajnowiec, and Bernie Sattin are employees and stock shareholders of Janssen Inc. James C Gregor has acted as an adviser/speaker for AbbVie, Allergan, Janssen, and Takeda and has received research support from Takeda. Erik Sabot is an employee of Optum; Optum received a consulting fee from Janssen Canada for this study. Baljinder Salh has acted as a speaker for Janssen, Takeda, Abbvie, Pendopharm, and Allergan and has acted as an adviser for Janssen and Takeda. Janssen Inc. funded this study. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.