Exploring women's preferences for birth settings in England: A discrete choice experiment

To explore pregnant women's preferences for birth setting in England. Labelled discrete choice experiment (DCE). Online survey. Pregnant women recruited through social media and an online panel. We developed a DCE to assess women's preferences for four hypothetical birth settings based on seven attributes: reputation, continuity of care, distance from home, time to see a doctor, partner able to stay overnight, chance of straightforward birth and safety for baby. We used a mixed logit model, with setting modelled as an alternative-specific constant, and conducted a scenario analysis to evaluate the impact of changes in attribute levels on uptake of birth settings. Women's preferences for birth setting. 257 pregnant women completed the DCE. All birth setting attributes, except 'time to see doctor', were significant in women's choice (p