Exploring Preferences and Priorities in Advanced Parkinson’s Disease: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Treatments for advanced Parkinson’s disease (aPD) are differentiated by efficacy, safety, and modality-related characteristics. As the disease progresses and motor fluctuations worsen, many patients require more frequent dosing or consideration of device-aided therapies, including subcutaneous infusions, intestinal gel delivery systems, or deep brain stimulation. Assessing treatment preferences is valuable to ensure people with aPD (PwP) and care partners (CPs) are satisfied with a treatment’s impact on both motor function and quality of life, potentially increasing adherence and effectiveness. A total of 304 participants (223 PwP, 81 CPs) from the USA, UK, and Germany were included in the study. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was used to elicit preferences over treatment characteristics. In the DCE, respondents were presented with a series of choice tasks, each consisting of two hypothetical treatments described by varying levels of seven attributes: daily hours of ON time without troublesome dyskinesia (ONwoTD), frequency of early morning OFF time (EMO), risk of mild-to-moderate skin reactions, risk of severe side effects requiring hospitalization, route of administration (ROA), frequency of pill regimen, and frequency of device maintenance. Analyses with a random parameter logit model were used to estimate attribute conditional relative importance (CRI) and explore how people would trade off across attributes. The average PwP age was 65.7 years (SD 8.6), time since diagnosis was 10.0 years (SD 4.4), and self-reported OFF time was 4.0 h/day (SD 2.4). Within the survey design, ROA emerged as the most important attribute (CRI 35.3), followed by hours of ONwoTD (CRI 26.4). All other attributes were of similar importance. Nonsurgical treatments were strongly preferred, with oral pills being the most preferred, followed by infusion device without surgery (subcutaneous infusion). PwP prioritized efficacy (ONwoTD) and ROA when considering treatment options. Understanding these preferences may enhance informed and meaningful decision-making between healthcare providers and PwP.