OBJECTIVES: There is limited evidence available regarding patient preferences for treatment alternatives, including those treatment characteristics that have greatest influence on the perceived value, and how this knowledge can be used in healthcare decision-making. The objective of this study was to identify and elicit patient preferences for treatments in Type-II-Diabetes in different patient groups. METHODS: In order to elicit patient preferences this study used an explorative qualitative approach in combination with quantitative survey techniques. Literature research and semi-structured interviews (N=15) were the basis of quantitative elicitations (N=388) using Analytic-Hierarchy-Process (AHP) and Best-Worst-Scaling (BWS). The study aimed at the determination of the relative importance of patient-relevant decision criteria as well as to compare two methods of measuring preference. In total, seven therapy-related attributes (three levels each) were tested. The sample contained patients receiving oral anti-diabetics (OAD) (N=200) or insulin (N=188). RESULTS: The qualitative study identified 22 patient-relevant treatment-characteristics. Out of these the seven most important were included in AHP and BWS. The AHP- as well as BWS-surveys resulted in a dominance of the attribute “HbA1c-Level”, for both OAD- and Insulin-patients. In the OAD-group AHP and BWS independently showed the same ranking of the three attributes: “Delay of Insulin-Therapy” (Rank 2), “Occurrence of hypoglycemia” (Rank 3) and “Weight changes” (Rank 4). In the Insulin-group “Occurrence of hypoglycemia” was ranked second using AHP and third within BWS. “Weight changes” were ranked equally in both methods. However their relevance among different patient groups changed. CONCLUSIONS: In both patient-groups AHP and BWS show similar results. Nonetheless both groups have different horizons of experience and differ in the ranking of decision criteria. For the first time the methods of AHP and BWS were used to assess patients’ preferences for different characteristics of treatment in Type-II-Diabetes, as well as the influence of those criteria on the patient benefit.