THU0350 Patient Preferences in the Choice of Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drugs

BackgroundThere is a variety of biologic and conventional synthetic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) available for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). These DMARDs are associated with different characteristics in key attributes such as mode of administration, side effects, etc. Importantly, biological DMARDs (bDMARDs) are all administered parenterally.1 However, targeted synthetic DMARDs offer alternative administration forms (i.e. oral administration). To address patient preferences and to inform decision making regarding such characteristics, a quantitative approach is needed.ObjectivesThe current study assesses the importance of such treatment characteristics for RA patients' preferences using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in an ecologically valid design.MethodsIn a questionnaire-based DCE, 2,072 RA patients were asked to choose the “most” and “least preferred DMARD” (best-worst-scaling) among hypothetical multi-attribute treatment options with varying levels of key attributes, as defined in focus groups: mode of administration, frequency of administration, time until onset of drug effect, necessity of combination therapy with methotrexate, and side effects. A design with multi-attribute products (multi-profile case) simulates a real choice situation between different treatment alternatives.2 Each questionnaire included eight DCE scenarios.ResultsAnalyses included 1,588 patients (drop-out rate: 23%) from 40 office based rheumatologists across Germany. Majority of patients were female (74%), 50 to 64 years of age (45%), with