Psycho-social medicine
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Psycho-social medicine · Dec 2008
Evaluating patients' preferences for multiple myeloma therapy, a Discrete-Choice-Experiment.
While there is an increasing emphasis on patient empowerment and shared decision making, patients' preferences for attributes associated with their treatment still need to be measured and considered. In the present study, patients' preferences regarding treatment of multiple myeloma (MM) were explored using direct assessment and a Discrete-Choice-Experiment (DCE). ⋯ Besides prolongation of life expectancy and effectiveness of treatment, further treatment options are of foremost importance to multiple myeloma patients. In addition, therapy-free intervals as well as an improved emotional quality of life ("Not always think of the disease") are valued as very important. The combination of direct assessment of importance and DCE is a valid combined survey technique for eliciting preferences of patients with multiple myeloma. The former ensures content validity (the possibility to measure a longer list of potentially important aspects), the latter has the advantage to combine positive and negative therapy characteristics and to avoid the problem of ceiling effects and "all-is-important" results.