CUPID: Parental preferences for unscheduled paediatric healthcare: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Unscheduled healthcare is a key component of healthcare delivery and makes up a significant proportion of healthcare access with children being particularly high users of unscheduled healthcare. Understanding the relative importance of factors that influence this behaviour and decision making is fundamental to ensuring the system is best designed to meet the needs of users, and the appropriate cost-effective usage of health system resources.

A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was developed to identify the preferences of parents accessing unscheduled healthcare for their children. Data was collected from parents in Ireland (N = 458) to elicit preferences across five attributes: timeliness, appointment type, healthcare professional attended, telephone guidance prior to attending, and cost. Using mixed logit models, all attributes were statistically significant, with same-day or next-day access, coupled with care by their own GP, identified as the strongest preferences of parents accessing unscheduled healthcare for their children. The results have implications for policy development and implementation initiatives that seek to improve unscheduled health services as understanding how parents use these services can maximise their effectiveness.    

Files explained:

1. Parent_Decision_Making_DCE_Survey.docx details the survey.

2. Final Parent DCE design.ngd:  Ngene™ file used to set-up the DCE. A Bayesian efficient design, based on minimising the Bayesian D-error criterion, was used to develop the choice sets and the alternatives using Ngene^TM software.  In total, 24 choice sets were created, and a blocked design split the choice sets into two blocks of twelve to minimise the burden on respondents.

3. Data from Survey 23 Feb 2021.xlsx is the source file detailing responses to the survey.

4. Stata Data Formatted for DCE.dta is the file formatted for the DCE for analysis.