• Michael P Pignone, Alison T Brenner, Sarah Hawley, Stacey L Sheridan, Carmen L Lewis, Daniel E Jonas, and Kirsten Howard.
• Department of Medicine, Cecil Sheps Center for Health Services Research and Lineberger Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. pignone@med.unc.edu
• J Gen Intern Med. 2012 Jan 1; 27 (1): 455045-50.

PurposeTo compare two techniques for eliciting and clarifying patient values for decision making about colorectal cancer (CRC) screening: choice-based conjoint analysis and a rating and ranking task.MethodsUsing our decision lab registry and university e-mail lists, we recruited average risk adults ages 48-75 for a written, mailed survey. Eligible participants were given basic information about CRC screening and six attributes of CRC screening tests, then randomized to complete either a choice-based conjoint analysis with 16 discrete choice tasks or a rating and ranking task. The main outcome was the most important attribute, as determined from conjoint analysis or participant ranking. Conjoint analysis-based most important attribute was determined from individual patient-level utilities generated using multinomial logistic regression and hierarchical Bayesian modeling.ResultsOf the 114 eligible participants, 104 completed and returned questionnaires. Mean age was 57 (range 48-73), 70% were female, 88% were white, 71% were college graduates, and 62% were up to date with CRC screening. Ability to reduce CRC incidence and mortality was the most frequent most important attribute for both the conjoint analysis (56% of respondents) and rating/ranking (76% of respondents) groups, and these proportions differed significantly between groups (absolute difference 20%, 95% CI 3%, 37%, p =0.03). There were no significant differences between groups in proportion with clear values (p = 0.352), intent to be screened (p = 0.226) or unlabelled test preference (p = 0.521)ConclusionsChoice-based conjoint analysis produced somewhat different patterns of attribute importance than a rating and ranking task, but had little effect on other outcomes.

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