Treatment Preferences of Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Results from Qualitative Interviews and Focus Groups in the United Kingdom, United States, and Germany.

BACKGROUND

A wide range of therapeutic regimens, including single-inhaler triple therapies (SITTs), are now available for the maintenance treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Thus, an improved understanding of patient preferences may be valuable to inform physician prescribing decisions. This study was performed to assess the factors considered by patients when making decisions about their COPD treatments using qualitative techniques.

METHODS

In the United Kingdom, United States and Germany, individual qualitative interviews (n=10 per country) and focus groups (1 per country; [United Kingdom, n=4; United States, n=6; Germany, n=6 participants]) were conducted. Interviews and focus groups were semi‑structured, lasting approximately 60 minutes, and focused on treatment preferences. Data were analyzed according to emerging themes identified from the interviews; qualitative thematic analysis of the data was performed using specialist software.

RESULTS

In interviews and focus groups, efficacy, ease of use, and lower frequency of use were favored attributes for current treatment, while side effects, medication taste, and more complex administration techniques were key dislikes. In interviews, most participants would consider a switch in medication, mainly for improved efficacy, but also to reduce medication frequency or following physician advice. Overall, efficacy and ease of use were the 2 most important attributes reported in interviews in all 3 countries.

CONCLUSION

Patients with COPD have preferences for certain attributes of medication, highlighting the multi-faceted nature of treatment effectiveness and the importance of the delivery device.These results were subsequently used to inform the design of a discrete choice experiment.

Informations de copyright

JCOPDF © 2020.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Editorial support (in the form of writing assistance, collating author comments, assembling tables/figures, grammatical editing and referencing) was provided by Tom Gallagher, PhD, and Molly Macpherson, BSc, of Gardiner-Caldwell Communications (Macclesfield, United Kingdom) and by Chrystelle Rasamison, of Fishawack Indicia, and was funded by GlaxoSmithKline plc. The authors declare the following conflicts of interest during the last 3 years in relation to this article: MS, ASI, NG, and PJ are employees of, and hold shares in, GlaxoSmithKline plc. ASI is also unpaid faculty at McMaster University, Canada. SB, LE, KH, and JM were employees of ICON plc., while the study was conducted. ICON plc., received funding from GlaxoSmithKline plc., to conduct this study but were not paid for the development of this publication.