Patient Acceptance to Valuing Digital Technologies: A Discrete Choice Experiment

OBJECTIVES: Digital technologies in post-acute rehabilitative therapies are increasingly used for cognitively, perceptually, and participatively impaired patients. These technologies are still largely unknown to users. Successful implementation depends on the acceptance of the patients. Besides expected clinical success, technical features such as ease of use, interaction, or feedback impact consumer acceptance.

METHODS: To obtain information on criteria impacting acceptance, a discrete choice experiment was conducted with seven attributes: Explanation of exercises, information, contact to professionals, patients' choice in process, data processing, copayment and therapy success. Stroke patients (experimental) and general population (control) were surveyed. The final instrument included six best-second-best tasks in partial design to reduce burden of experimental group. Data analysis used a mixed logit model.

RESULTS: A total of 1159 completes were in the control group. Relative importance of treatment success (60%, coef: -1.768; 100%, coef: 1.802) was rated as most important, followed by copayment (0€, coef: 1.067; 80€, coef: -1.167) and contact with professionals (no contact, coef: -0.987; direct contact, coef: 0.671). The value of digital technologies in rehabilitation lies in the achievement of goals (activities of daily living), communication (contact, explanations) and flexibility (location).

CONCLUSIONS: Acceptance is a multidimensional construct. Requirements for digital technologies include various dimensions. We attempted to develop a generic model that generates preference information to provide information on patient acceptance. In the future differences between patient (sub)groups will be analyzed with a latent class analysis.