Department of Health Sciences and Administration, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL, USA.
Department of Economics, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA.
Patient. 2019 Dec;12(6):639-650. doi: 10.1007/s40271-019-00380-z.
Recent evidence has shown that online surveys can reliably collect preference data, which markedly decrease the cost of health preference studies and expand their representativeness. As the use of mobile technology continues to grow, we wanted to examine its potential impact on health preferences.
Two recently completed discrete choice experiments using members of the US general population (n = 15,292) included information on respondent device (cell phone, tablet, Mac, PC) and internet connection (business, cellular, college, government, residential). In this analysis, we tested for differences in respondent characteristics, participation, response quality, and utility values for the 5-level EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L) by device and connection.
Compared to Mac and PC users, respondents using a cell phone or tablet had longer completion times and were significantly more likely to drop out during the surveys (p < 0.001). Tablet users also demonstrated more logical inconsistencies (p = 0.05). Likewise, respondents using a cellular internet connection exhibit significantly less consistency in their health preferences. However, matched samples for tablets and cell phones produced similar EQ-5D-5L utility values (mean differences < 0.06 on a quality-adjusted life-year [QALY] scale for all potential health states).
Allowing respondents to complete online surveys using a cell phone or tablet or over a cellular connection substantially increases the diversity of respondents and the likelihood of obtaining a representative sample, as many individuals have cell phones but not a computer. While the results showed systematic variability in participation and response quality by device and connection type, this study did not show any meaningful changes in utility values.
最近的证据表明，在线调查可以可靠地收集偏好数据，这显著降低了健康偏好研究的成本，并扩大了其代表性。随着移动技术的使用不断增加，我们想研究其对健康偏好的潜在影响。
本研究使用了美国普通人群中的两项最近完成的离散选择实验（n=15292），其中包括了受访者设备（手机、平板电脑、Mac、PC）和互联网连接（商业、蜂窝、大学、政府、住宅）的信息。在这项分析中，我们根据设备和连接类型，测试了受访者特征、参与度、响应质量和 EQ-5D（EQ-5D-5L）效用值的差异。
与 Mac 和 PC 用户相比，使用手机或平板电脑的受访者完成时间更长，在调查过程中更有可能中途退出（p<0.001）。平板电脑用户也表现出更多的逻辑不一致（p=0.05）。同样，使用蜂窝互联网连接的受访者表现出明显不一致的健康偏好。然而，平板电脑和手机的匹配样本产生了相似的 EQ-5D-5L 效用值（所有潜在健康状态的质量调整生命年[QALY]量表上的平均差异<0.06）。
允许受访者使用手机或平板电脑或通过蜂窝连接完成在线调查，大大增加了受访者的多样性和获得代表性样本的可能性，因为许多人有手机但没有电脑。虽然结果显示设备和连接类型的参与度和响应质量存在系统性差异，但本研究并未显示效用值有任何有意义的变化。
