Valuable patient preferences from stakeholder collaboration

2019-12-03

Stakeholder collaboration increases the value of patient preference studies, and the acceptance of their results. A paper recently published in Frontiers in Pharmacology shows that this is a key element of successful patient preference studies.

Eline van Overbeeke
Eline van Overbeeke, PREFER PhD student

To improve stakeholders’ understanding of how patient preference studies work, and the value the studies can bring to decision-making, the authors suggest that stakeholders should develop the studies together.

“The more uncertainty there is about decisions surrounding a medical product, the more important and valuable patients’ preferences become in informing that decision,” says Eline van Overbeeke, one of the authors.

Stakeholders’ limited knowledge of patient preference studies is well known. Despite the fact that potential applications have been identified for both industry, regulatory and HTA processes, results from patient preference studies are rarely submitted to support regulatory and HTA decision-making.

When the study is conducted should be considered when determining how to conduct it. The method chosen should line up with the research question, the patients participating, and the medical product life cycle. According to the authors, stakeholder collaboration, patient sample and method are key for successful patient preference studies.

Stakeholder collaboration can support efforts exploring how to optimise the inclusion of patient preferences in decision-making.

By Anna Holm

van Overbeeke, E., Janssens, R., Whichello, C., et al. Design, Conduct, and Use of Patient Preference Studies in the Medical Product Life Cycle: A Multi-Method Study, Frontiers in Pharmacology, 3 December 2019

Read the paper

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Last modified: 2021-11-10