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

Table 4 Preference of doctors for de-escalation of DMARDs by subgroups based on answering patterns

	Group 1 n = 48		Group 2 n = 22		Group 3 n = 26		Group 4 n = 30		Group 5 n = 30
	β	SE	β	SE	β	SE	β	SE	β	SE
Opt-out¹ chosen	38%		21%		9%		1%		53%
Opt-out¹	-2.78^***	0.23	-5.33^***	0.97	-4.98^***	0.83	-5.70^***	0.64	-4.72^***	0.41
DAS ≤ 3.2²	-0.59^***	0.15	-1.60^**	0.49	-2.55^***	0.57	-0.59^***	0.15	-1.87^***	0.27
Swollen joint count
1³	-1.01^***	0.19	-3.24^***	0.59	-1.02	0.53	-0.79^***	0.19	-3.53^***	0.48
2³	-1.90^***	0.22	-6.06^***	0.99	-0.63^*	0.28	-1.25^***	0.21	-3.92^***	0.51
Patient history
Erosive disease⁴	-1.27^***	0.20	-0.73	0.40	-1.23^**	0.38	-0.58^*	0.24	-1.29^***	0.43
Remission difficult⁴	-1.08^***	0.20	-0.95^*	0.46	-1.42^**	0.42	-0.44	0.27	-1.79^***	0.37
Erosive + remission difficult⁴	-2.80^***	0.25	-1.14	0.62	-2.99^***	0.60	-1.29^***	0.30	-2.79^***	0.40
Remission duration 6 months⁵	-0.41^*	0.16	-1.17^***	0.40	-0.52	0.31	-0.17	0.14	-3.74	-
Patient not willing to de-escalate at start of visit⁶	-1.61^***	0.20	-1.05^***	0.30	-0.98^**	0.30	-1.14^***	0.13	-1.49^***	0.27
Class probabilities, median (range)	0.99 (0.55 – 0.99)		0.99 (0.55 – 0.99)		0.94 (0.58 – 0.99)		0.99 (0.77 – 0.99)		0.98 (0.57 – 0.99)

β beta coefficient, SE standard error, DAS Disease Activity Score
^* p < 0.05; ^** p < 0.01; ^*** p < 0.001
¹This option was included in case a rheumatologist did not want to de-escalate DMARDs in either of the patients presented in a pair
²Reference DAS < 2.6
³Reference no swollen joints
⁴Reference easy remission and no erosions
⁵Reference remission duration 1 year
⁶Reference patient willing to de-escalate DMARDs at start of visit

ISSN: 1478-6362