The following submission is for a study protocol for a Health Preference Research Study (HPR).

OBJECTIVES

: The increasing need for rehabilitative services, the shortage of professionals and rising costs, leads to the need for new healthcare solutions. Robots and assistive technologies in a therapy can counteract the problems. In order to integrate the new digital solutions and to achieve high effectiveness by maximizing acceptance (engagement), patient preferences and acceptance should be integrated in the assessment of digital therapies.

The primary objective is to evaluate the criteria that lead to patient acceptance.

The secondary objectives are: Benefit-burden assessment. Assessing the relative importance of attributes for comparing alternatives. Identify key attributes that influence patient adherence.

METHODS

: By using a stated preference study, therapy characteristics that patients consider when evaluating digital therapy options are identified and compared.

Results from pre-study have led to a selection of therapy attributes that will be incorporated into a quantitative evaluation of relative attribute importance through a discrete choice experiment (DCE) or best-worst scaling (BWS).

The analysis will use logit-based approaches to analyze treatment preference data collected from respondents, including random parameter logit (RPL) to model unobserved variation in preferences within the sample. The initial model specification will only consider main effects characterized by the attribute variables. Heterogeneity will be analyzed using latent class analysis (LCA).

RESULTS

: This HPR will document patients preferences for robotic and assistance technologies in health care. Treatment attributes for the survey of patient preferences and acceptance include technical aspects and therapy-related attributes, such as financial, clinical and digital-administrative attributes.

CONCLUSIONS

: Research on patient preferences helps to support healthcare decisions and promote an effective and efficient healthcare system with met care needs and low costs. Incorporating preferences and acceptance criteria has positive short-, medium-, and long-term effects on patients and the health care system.