BACKGROUND: Although effective for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (AF), anticoagulants increase the risk of bleeding. The relative importance of benefits and risks associated with anticoagulants is influenced by various factors and has mostly been documented only in physicians. OBJECTIVES: To identify patients characteristics influencing the relative importance of non-fatal outcomes associated with anticoagulants. METHODS: Data from a choice-format conjoint survey asking AF patients to choose between hypothetical anticoagulants were used to estimate importance weights for non-fatal outcomes associated with anticoagulants. The influence of patients characteristics was tested by evaluating the significance of interactions between importance weights and age, gender, prior use of anticoagulants, personal history of stroke, family history of stroke and personal or family history of bleeding. RESULTS: A total of 152 patients completed the survey. Only two patients characteristics significantly influenced the relative importance of non-fatal outcomes associated with anticoagulants. Overall, the least desirable non-fatal outcome was disabling stroke. Using disabling stroke as a reference, patients characteristics such as prior use of anticoagulants increased the relative importance of non-disabling stroke by 48%, major extra-cranial bleeding by 12% and non-major clinically relevant bleeding by 82%. On the other hand, personal or family history of bleeding increased the relative importance of major extra-cranial bleeding by 19% and non-major clinically relevant bleeding by 34% while decreasing the relative importance of non-disabling stroke by 15%.  CONCLUSIONS: This study documents the impact of patients prior experience on relative importance of non-fatal outcomes associated with anticoagulants. Proper explanation of the benefits and risks of anticoagulants may play a role in patients understanding and acceptance of stroke prophylactic treatment. Interestingly, no single patients characteristics changed the fact that AF patients were willing to accept a non-zero risks of bleeding in exchange for prevention of disabling strokes.