Grant: #73056

Grantee Institution: Duke University

Principal Investigator: Jan Ostermann, Ph.D.

Grant Period: October 1, 2015 – June 30, 2017

Budget: $349,433

Project Aim: To estimate HIV patients’ treatment preferences to help patients and providers make treatment choices

Key Findings:

  • Patients with higher education, those not taking a single-tablet regimen, and those who experienced at least one long-term effect expressed greater interest in novel drug delivery systems.
  • For novel treatments there was greatest interest shown in switching to an oral regimen taken once weekly, followed by injections every other month; patients were least interested in two implants twice a year.

Project Description:

Because of patent expirations and the availability of more convenient but more expensive combination therapies, the choice of HIV treatment often becomes a “shoppable moment” in which patients and physicians make trade-offs between pill burden, food requirements, side effects, long-term toxicities, and out-of-pocket costs with important implications for adherence and treatment efficacy. The researchers used in-depth interviews, focus groups, and a discrete choice experiment with HIV-infected patients to identify and quantify patient tradeoffs for characteristics of ARV, including systematic variation across subgroups. They also developed a tool to help patients and providers make treatment choices. The goal of the project was to provide providers and policymakers with information on patient treatment preferences and facilitate greater patient involvement in treatment decision.

This project was funded as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s solicitation “Optimizing Value in Health Care: Consumer-focused Trends from the Field,” which supported studies that addressed consumer perceptions of value in the new and emerging health care landscape.

Publications

Who Wants to Switch? Gauging Patient Interest in Novel Antiretroviral Therapies  
Open Forum Infectious Diseases | October 2018