Objectives: Our study aimed to support evidence-informed policy-making on patient-centred care by investigating preferences for healthcare services among hypertension patients.
Design: We identified six attributes of healthcare services for a discrete choice experiment (DCE), and applied Bayesian-efficient design with blocking techniques to generate choice sets. After conducting the DCE, we used a mixed logit regression model to investigate patients' preferences for each attribute and analysed the heterogeneities in preferences. Estimates of willingness to pay were derived from regression coefficients.
Setting: The DCE was conducted in Jiangsu province and Shanghai municipality in China.
Participants: Patients aged 18 years or older with a history of hypertension for at least 2 years and who took medications regularly were recruited.
Results: Patients highly valued healthcare services that produced good treatment effects (β=4.502, p<0.001), followed by travel time to healthcare facilities within 1 hour (β=1.285, p<0.001), and the effective physician-patient communication (β=0.771, p<0.001). Continuity of care and minimal waiting time were also positive predictors (p<0.001). However, the out-of-pocket cost was a negative predictor of patients' choice (β=-0.168, p<0.001). Older adults, patients with good health-related quality of life, had comorbidities, and who were likely to visit secondary and tertiary hospitals cared more about favourable effects (p<0.05). Patients were willing to pay ¥2489 (95% CI ¥2013 to ¥2965) as long as the clinical benefits gained were substantial.
Conclusions: Our findings highlight the importance of effective, convenient, efficient, coordinated and patient-centred care for chronic diseases like hypertension. Policy-makers and healthcare providers are suggested to work on aligning the service provision with patients' preferences.
Keywords: health policy; health services administration & management; hypertension; public health.
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