Despite the availability of a large body of research evidence on patient preferences for health outcomes and/or health care services, its use in healthcare policy decisions is limited. This contrasts with the current increasing attention for patient-centred care and integration of the patient perspective in healthcare policy decisions. A major challenge for the integration of evidence on patient preference is that research on patient preferences is performed by various disciplines (e.g. psychology and economics) that do not share a common language. It has been recommended to perform conceptual and taxonomic work on the definition and conceptualisation of ‘preference’ and related terms. The aim of this study was to develop a taxonomy of preference-related terms.  The taxonomy was developed in three steps: 1) the identification of preference-related terms; 2) providing all identified terms with  a definition from the dictionary; and 3) the identification of dominant theories or models from (health) economics and psychology that deal with the reference-related terms. The proposed taxonomy consists of several building blocks that hold all identified preference-related terms and demonstrate the relation between terms. The building blocks are centred around a factual event. Ex ante to this factual event lies building block 1, “decision making” holding terms like “choice” and “decision”. Ex post lie building block 2 “evaluation process” and building block 3 “outcome of evaluation process”.  Building block 3 holds terms like “utility”, “quality of life” and “satisfaction”. Building blocks 1-3 are influenced by building block 4 “the value system”. This value system is divided in cognition, affect and conation and holds terms like “beliefs”, “expectation”, “attitudes”, “desires” and “intention”. In this taxonomy, preferences can be considered as a part of the value system. The proposed taxonomy is a first step towards conceptual clarity to facilitate the integration of research evidence in healthcare policy decisions.