Patients' preferences in periodontal disease treatment elicited alongside an IQWiG benefit assessment: a feasibility study

Vera Vennedey,1 Sonja HM Derman,2 Mickaël Hiligsmann,3 Daniele Civello,1 Anja Schwalm,4 Astrid Seidl,4 Fülöp Scheibler,5 Stephanie Stock,1 Michael J Noack,2 Marion Danner1,5 1Institute for Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology, University Hospital Cologne (AöR), Cologne, Germany; 2Department of Operative Dentistry and Periodontology, University Hospital Cologne (AöR), Cologne, Germany; 3Department of Health Services Research, CAPHRI Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands; 4Department of Health Care and Health Economics, Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), Cologne, Germany; 5Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Kiel, Germany Background and purpose: The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) previously tested two preference elicitation methods in pilot projects and regarded them as generally feasible for prioritizing outcome-specific results of benefit assessment. The present study aimed to investigate the feasibility of completing a discrete choice experiment (DCE) within 3 months and to determine the relative importance of attributes of periodontal disease and its treatment.Patients and methods: This preference elicitation was conducted alongside the IQWiG benefit assessment of systematic treatments of periodontal diseases. Attributes were defined based on the benefit assessment, literature review, and patients’ and periodontologists’ interviews. The DCE survey was completed by patients with a history of periodontal disease. Preferences were elicited for the attributes “tooth loss within next 10 years”, “own costs for treatment, follow-up visits, re-treatment”, “complaints and symptoms”, and “frequency of follow-up visits”. Patients completed a self-administered questionnaire