Patient Preferences for Interferon-Beta in Iran: A Discrete Choice Experiment Publisher Pubmed



Rahimi F^{1, 2} ; Rasekh HR² ; Abbasian E³ ; Peiravian F² ; Etemadifar M⁴ ; Ashtari F⁴ ; Sabzghabaee AM⁵ ; Amirsadri MR⁶
Source: PLoS ONE Published:2018

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, progressive, and common disease affecting the central nervous system in young adults. Interferon-beta is one of the most widely used medicines to reduce the disease progression. Given the variety of drugs in this category, we aimed to identify the preferences of patients for IFN-β that play an important role in policymaking in this area. Discrete choice experiment method was used in the present study to identify and prioritize those attributes that are of interest to MS patients and increases the utility of the use of IFN-β in their treatment. Questionnaires were given to 358 patients in Isfahan-Iran, who were asked to choose between the two treatment choices in each scenario. The results of the logit model showed that the changes in the efficacy lead to the most changes in the patient utility. Changes in side effects and ease of injection have been placed in the next rankings. Considering the drug attributes considered more desirable by patients can lead to greater medication adherence and possibly better treatment outcomes. Also, pharmaceutical companies, the health ministry, the Food and Drug Administration, insurance organizations, and neurologists can benefit from this information in production and importation, policymaking, and prescription. © 2018 Rahimi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.