Using conjoint analysis to assess patients' preferences when visiting emergency departments in Hong Kong.

Abstract

To explore factors related to emergency department (ED) attendances in Hong Kong, the authors piloted the application of conjoint analysis in eliciting patient preferences regarding ED visits. The study recruited 390 semi-urgent or non-urgent patients from a targeted convenience sample of three large EDs. Respondents were asked to rank eight scenarios structured to explore the relative importance of three key attributes-self-perceived illness severity, waiting time, and consultation fee-that may result in an ED visit. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents would consider visiting a parallel clinic instead of the ED for semi-urgent and non-urgent conditions. The relative importance attached to illness severity, waiting time, and consultation fee were 47.8%, 33.6%, and 18.7%, respectively. This study demonstrated that Hong Kong patients are receptive to the concept of parallel clinics, and illustrated that conjoint analysis is a rigorous survey technique for eliciting the views of patients on health care services in the ED setting.