On the Elicitation of Preferences for Alternative Therapies

Abstract

We investigated how variations in the way information is presented to patients influence their choices between alternative therapies. Data were presented summarizing the results of surgery and radiation therapy for lung cancer to 238 ambulatory patients with different chronic medical conditions and to 491 graduate students and 424 physicians. We asked the subjects to imagine that they had lung cancer and to choose between the two therapies on the basis of both cumulative probabilities and life-expectancy data. Different groups of respondents received input data that differed only in whether or not the treatments were identified and whether the outcomes were framed in terms of the probability of living or the probability of dying.