The application of discrete choice experiments eliciting young peoples’ preferences for healthcare: a systematic literature review

OBJECTIVES: Understanding young people’s preferences for healthcare is critical for reducing the negative effect of undesirable choices. This review aims to synthesise the evidence obtained from discrete choice experiments (DCEs) eliciting young people’s preferences for healthcare interventions and service deliveries, specifically, to (1) examine the methodology, including a selection of attributes and levels, experimental design, estimation procedure and validity; (2) evaluate similarities, differences and rigour of designs to the general population DCEs; and, (3) compare the DCEs’ application to the seven health priority areas defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO). METHODS: A systematic review searching Medline, EconLIT, PsychINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science was performed up until May 2021. Inclusion criteria: a DCE, eliciting young peoples’ preferences (10–24 years of age), on a healthcare-related topic defined by WHO, peer-reviewed, full-text available in English. A bespoke checklist was used to assess the methodological quality of the included studies. RESULTS: Eighteen DCE studies were included in the review, exploring interventions and service in sexual and reproductive health (n = 9; 50%), smoking cessation (n = 4; 22%), mental health (n = 1), nutrition (n = 1), unintentional injuries (n = 1), vaccination against severe but rare diseases (n = 1); and diabetes (n = 1). Compared to the general population, DCEs eliciting young people’s preferences had a high proportion of monetary measures and a smaller number of choices per respondent with the overwhelming number of surveys using fractional factorial design. The majority of studies were of moderate quality (50–75% of the criteria met). CONCLUSIONS: While identified DCEs touched on most health priority areas, the scope was limited. The conduct and reporting of DCEs with young people could be improved by including the state-of-the-art design, estimation procedures and analysis. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10198-022-01528-9.