Setting Organ Allocation Priorities: A Discrete Choice Experiment with German Patients and Their Relatives

Figures & data

Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of the Study Sample

Variables	Participants
Age	Range: 18–80
	Median: 50
	Mean: 49.1
Gender	Female: 200 (70.2%)
	Male: 84 (29.5%)
	Non-binary: 1 (0.3%)
Family situation	Married: 147 (51.6%)
	Single: 81 (28.4%)
	Divorced: 46 (16.1%)
	Widowed: 10 (3.5%)
	Registered same-sex relationship: 1 (0.3%)
Relation to transplantation	Transplanted patients: 180 (63.2%)
	Relatives to patients: 68 (23.9%)
	Patients on the waiting list: 37 (13.0%)
Organs-specific transplant exposure	Lung: 144 (50.5%)
	Kidney: 66 (23.2%)
	Heart: 44 (15.4%)
	Liver: 19 (6.7%)
	Combinations of the above: 12 (4.2%)
Restrictions in everyday life due to the organ affected †	Strong: 84 (29.5%)
	Some: 107 (37.5%)
	Rarely: 79 (27.7%)
	None: 15 (5.2%)

Note: †Relatives to patients were asked to answer about the restrictions of the affected organ for the patient.

Table 2 Conditional Logit Model

Conditional Logit Model	β - Coefficient	95% CI ±
Life years gained after transplantation
+ 5 years (Reference)	0
+ 10 years	0.498***	0.183
+ 15 years	0.524***	0.191
Quality of life after transplantation
Bad (Reference)	0
Moderate	1.477***	0.179
Good	1.252***	0.176
Waiting time
3 weeks (Reference)	0
3 months	0.113	0.179
3 years	0.127	0.174
Age
25 years (Reference)	0
40 years	−0.553***	0.240
55 years	0.100	0.244
70 years	−1.383***	0.247
Compliance
Always (Reference)	0
Sometimes	−1.421***	0.180
Rarely	−2.514***	0.200
Social support
Yes (Reference)	0
No	−0.779*	0.145
Constant	0.017	0.187
Log likelihood	−1891.6801
Number of observations	4560
Number of participants	285
AIC	3809.360
BIC	3892.886

Notes: *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001 to the reference; AIC: Akaike Information Criterion; BIC: Bayesian Information Criterion.

Figure 1 Conditional logit model, β-coefficients and 95% confidence intervals.

Figure 2 Latent class analysis, β-coefficients and 95% confidence intervals. Light: Class 1; Dark: Class 2.

Table 3 Demographic Characteristics of the Identified Classes

	Class^‡ 1 (n = 115)	Class 2^‡ (n = 170)
Age	Range: 18–77	Range: 19–80
	Median: 51	Median: 50
	Mean: 49.9	Mean: 48.5
Gender	Female: 79 (68.7%)	Female: 121 (71.2%)
	Male: 36 (31.3%)	Male: 48 (28.2%)
		Non-binary: 1 (0.6%)
Family situation	Married: 54 (47.0%)	Married: 93 (54.7%)
	Single: 33 (28.7%)	Single: 48 (28.2%)
	Divorced: 24 (20.9%)	Divorced: 22 (12.9%)
	Widowed: 3 (2.6%)	Widowed: 7 (4.1%)
	Registered same-sex relationship: 1 (0.9%)
Relation to transplantation	Transplanted patients: 71 (61.7%)	Transplanted patients: 109 (64.1%)
	Relatives to patients: 27 (23.5%)	Relatives to patients: 41 (24.1%)
	Patients on the waiting list: 17 (14.8%)	Patients on the waiting list: 20 (11.7%)
Organs-specific transplant exposure	Lung: 57 (49.6%)	Lung: 87 (51.8%)
	Kidney: 28 (24.4%)	Kidney: 38 (22.4%)
	Heart: 16 (13.9%)	Heart: 28 (16.5%)
	Liver: 10 (8.7%)	Liver: 9 (5.3%)
	Combinations of the above: 4 (3.5%)	Combinations of the above: 8 (4.7%)
Restrictions in everyday life due to the organ affected ^§	Strong: 35 (30.4%)	Strong: 49 (28.8%)
	Some: 47 (40.8%)	Some: 60 (35.3%)
	Rarely: 28 (24.4%)	Rarely: 51 (30.0%)
	None: 5 (4.4%)	None: 10 (5.9%)

Notes: ^‡Latent class analysis does not directly allocate the participants to one class or another, but rather gives the percentage of a participant being in class 1 (x) or class 2 (1-x). For this model, participants were allocated to the class they had the higher probability of belonging to. ^§Relatives to patients were asked to answer about the restrictions of the affected organ for the patient.

Table 4 Importance Directly Attributed to the Attributes of the DCE

	Very Important	Important	Partly	Less Important	Not Important at All
Life years gained after transplantation	56 / 20%	111 / 39%	102 / 36%	13 / 5%	3 / 1%
Quality of life after transplantation	87 / 31%	126 / 44%	61 / 21%	9 / 3%	2 / 1%
Waiting time	17 / 6%	45 / 16%	92 / 32%	99 / 35%	32 / 11%
Age	31 / 11%	66 / 23%	127 / 45%	51 / 18%	10 / 4%
Compliance	162 / 57%	88 / 31%	31 / 11%	4 / 1%	0 / 0%
Social support	29 / 10%	74 / 26%	100 / 35%	67 / 24%	15 / 5%

Notes: Grey and bold: most picked; grey: 2nd most picked.