Preferences for cardiovascular and pulmonary rehabilitation care: A discrete choice experiment among patients in Lebanon

OBJECTIVE: Patient preferences are important in designing optimal rehabilitation care. The aim of this study is to assess preferences for rehabilitation care among two groups of respondents.

DESIGN: An online discrete choice experiment survey was carried out.

SETTING: We use data for Lebanon, a country where rehabilitation care is still underdeveloped.

PARTICIPANTS: Patients who have undergone or are currently undergoing rehabilitation treatment (users) and those who have not (yet) used rehabilitation care (non-users).

INTERVENTION: Patients were asked to repeatedly choose between two hypothetical rehabilitation care packages with seven different attributes: attitude of the staff, travel time to clinic, out-of-pocket costs, medical equipment, rehabilitation plan, additional lifestyle education session, and support during rehabilitation care.

MAIN MEASURES: Preference heterogeneity among patients with different characteristics was investigated using random effect binary logistic regression (software package Stata 15).

RESULTS: In total, 126 respondents completed the survey. The most preferred attribute was an informal and friendly attitude of the staff followed by modern medical equipment, additional lifestyle education session via eHealth, and support during the rehabilitation program via phone call or SMS. Respondents were less in favor of going to the rehabilitation clinic and paying additional out-of-pocket costs for the rehabilitation treatment. This rank order was similar between users and non-users.

CONCLUSION: Preferences of patients regarding the type of program chosen (eHealth or at clinical-based) need to be included in future rehabilitation programs. Improving patient experience with rehabilitation programs by giving the best care based on a patient-centered approach is essential.