Just published in Social Science & Medicine [open access] is a social preference study by OHE’s Koonal Shah and the University of Sheffield’s Aki Tsuchiya and Allan Wailoo. The study examines the extent of societal support for giving higher priority to life-extending end of life treatments than to other types of treatments.

 

Stated preference data were collected via a web-based discrete choice experiment using a sample of 3,969 members of the general public in England and Wales. The survey comprised a series of choice tasks which involved asking respondents which of two hypothetical patients they would prefer to treat. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) supplementary guidance for the appraisal of life-extending end of life treatments was used as the framework for the study design. 

 

The authors find little evidence of public support for giving priority to end of life treatments. Rather, they report that respondents’ choices were mostly driven by the size of the health gains offered by treatment.

 

The article is available to download free-of-charge from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.11.022