Designing a Stated Choice Experiment: The Value of a Qualitative Process

In the present work, we demonstrated how the qualitative process significantly impacted and guided the design, and it was clear that a less thorough qualitative process would have resulted in a less useable and valid design. To elicit relevant attributes and levels for a DCE, fieldwork in clinical departments in Danish hospitals was performed and has been supplemented by qualitative interviews with patients and doctors. Systematic and thorough qualitative investigation of the decision context relevant attributes and levels and appropriate framing appears valuable in the process of designing a DCE for quantitative pilot testing.