Exploring the feasibility of using discrete choice experiment (DCE) to elicit preferences among children and adolescents: protocol for a convergent parallel mixed methods study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are increasingly used to elicit value sets for paediatric health-related quality of life instruments, including the EQ-5D-Y. In a multinational pilot study that compared EQ-5D-Y-5L health state preferences among children, adolescents and adults, more inconsistencies in DCE responses were observed among children and adolescents than adults. Possible explanations for inconsistencies could be youths' limited understanding of health state preferences or lack of engagement with the online survey. This protocol describes the methods of a study that explores the feasibility of eliciting health state preferences for the EQ-5D-Y-5L from Canadian children and adolescents using DCE. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A convergent parallel mixed methods study will be conducted with a purposive, stratified sample of 36 Canadian children and adolescents (13-18 years). In the quantitative study component, participants will complete an online questionnaire with EQ-5D-Y-5L and DCE exercises. The quantitative data on participants' sociodemographic characteristics, EQ-5D-Y-5L, and feasibility indicators of DCE (ie, incompletion, speeding, flatlining, violation of dominant choice task) will be analysed using descriptive statistics. The second component will be a qualitative focus group discussion to understand their experiences of completing the DCE tasks. Six focus groups (with six participants per group) will be conducted. The qualitative data will be analysed using content analysis. The findings from both components will then be integrated using narrative synthesis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval was obtained from the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board (#17034). We will publish findings in peer-reviewed journals and present at key conferences. We will also disseminate results within the EuroQol community as the study findings are part of a methodological research programme aimed at informing the design of an EQ-5D-Y-5L valuation study in Canada.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.142 | 0.121 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.046 | 0.010 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".