Doctors’ preferences in de-escalating DMARDs in rheumatoid arthritis: a discrete choice experiment

Table 1 Choice task example

	Patient A	Patient B
Duration of remission¹	6 months	1 year
Patient preference for de-escalation at the start of the consult²	Patient is not willing to de-escalate	Patient is willing to de-escalate
Number of swollen joints³	1	2
DAS28⁴	≤3.2	<2.6
Medical history⁵	Difficult to accomplish remission	Easy to accomplish remission
	Non-erosive	Erosive

Participants were required to choose the patient they deemed most suitable for de-escalation or neither (opt-out). For each choice task patient characteristics were varied by assigning different levels. Possible levels are indicated in the subscript. All patients were assumed to use the combination of methotrexate 20–25 mg/week and a TNF blocker
DAS Disease Activity Score
¹Levels were “6 months” and “12 months”
²Levels were “patient is not willing to de-escalate” and “patient is willing to de-escalate”
³Levels were “0”, “1” and “2”
⁴Levels were “≤3.2” and “<2.6”
⁵Levels were “difficult to accomplish remission, erosive”, “difficult to accomplish remission, non-erosive”, “easy to accomplish remission, erosive” and “easy to accomplish remission, non-erosive”

ISSN: 1478-6362