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A willingness-to-pay assessment of parents’ preference for shorter duration treatment of acute otitis media in children

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Abstract

Objective: To assess parental willingness to pay (WTP) for a shorter course of antibacterial treatment versus conventional antibacterial therapy for acute otitis media (AOM).

Methods: The study population consisted of 562 parents of children who had been seen and treated by a paediatrician for an episode of AOM between February and November 2002 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. At the end of the AOM treatment, a questionnaire that included demographic information about the parents and child, details of the child’s AOM history, a global wellbeing (i.e. quality of life) assessment, an evaluation of treatment compliance and a scripted WTP question was administered over the telephone. Descriptive analyses were performed in addition to a multivariate analysis to estimate possible predictors of parental WTP.

Results: The children with AOM were representative of the AOM patient population, with 46% being <2 years of age and the majority attending day-care or school. Parents were willing to pay a median of $Can31.66 (2002 values) for a mono-dose (one dose, on 1 day) and $Can26.63 for a tri-dose (one dose daily, for 3 days) antibacterial treatment. Regression analyses demonstrated that the amount parents were willing to pay was positively associated with increasing household income, increasing number of AOM episodes during the previous year and experiencing adverse effects of treatment.

Conclusion: Parents of children with AOM were willing to pay more for their child to benefit from a shorter duration of antibacterial treatment than for a standard course. Short duration of treatment appears to be associated with better compliance and parents’ perception of better general wellbeing for their child.

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Acknowledgements

Sponsorship: this research was supported by an independent research grant provided by Pfizer Canada Inc. The funding agreement ensured the author’s independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing and publishing the report.

Delphine Gueylard Chenevier is a PhD candidate and the recipient of a grant from the ‘Fonds de Recherche en Santé du Québec’.

This study is part of Delphine Gueylard Chenevier’s thesis. She has conducted the literature review, studied different methodologic approaches and written the protocol. She coordinated the recruitments and interviews, analysed the results and wrote this manuscript. As mentioned at the end of this manuscript she was helped with statistics and interviews.

Dr Jacques LeLorier is the Director of this thesis. He conducted the research and corrected the manuscript.

Dr Jacques LeLorier has worked as paid consultant for Pfizer Canada Inc.

The authors would like to thank the staff of Ste. Justine’s Hospital and Benoit Bailey MD for coordinating the study. We are grateful to the following physician investigators for enrolling parents into the study: Aly Attye, Jean-Luc Doray, Jean-Pierre Doray, Boris Subic, Stephen Treherme, Pierre Urbanski, Gaelle Vekemans and John Yaremko.

We thank the study interviewers: Severine Delmas, Sanaz Nowrouzzahra and Liliane Roucolle, as well as Marc Dorais and Amir Abbas Tahami Monfared for their assistance with statistics.

Finally, we would like to thank the parents involved in the study who gave their time to complete the interviews, and without whom this study would not have been possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada

    Delphine Gueylard Chenevier

  2. Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmacoepidemiology Research Unit, Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal Hôtel Dieu, Montreal, Canada

    Delphine Gueylard Chenevier &  Jacques LeLorier

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  1. Delphine Gueylard Chenevier
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  2. Jacques LeLorier
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Correspondence to Jacques LeLorier.

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Chenevier, D.G., LeLorier, J. A willingness-to-pay assessment of parents’ preference for shorter duration treatment of acute otitis media in children. Pharmacoeconomics 23, 1243–1255 (2005). https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-200523120-00008

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