Preferences for Telephone Cancer Information and Support in People with Cancer and Carers: Attribute and Level Selection for a Discrete Choice Experiment.

Background and objective: Telephone cancer information and support services (CISS) deliver essential evidence-based resources for people living with cancer. This research aimed to describe how attributes and levels were developed for a future discrete choice experiment to elicit preferences for operational characteristics of a CISS, focusing on Cancer Council Victoria's service.

Methods: Using a mixed-methods approach guided by the ISPOR checklist for conjoint analysis in healthcare, initial attributes were developed using an artificial intelligence framework to analyse CISS calls (January 2018-December 2021), focus groups with people with cancer and carers using the CISS (July-August 2022), and a systematic literature review of qualitative studies. A four-stage descriptive process guided attribute and level development. An expert panel of researchers (n = 10), a CISS staff member, a person with lived experience of cancer and a consumer-only panel (n = 7) met monthly to prioritise, refine and finalise attributes by consensus.

Results: Call data analysis (people with cancer n = 7701; carers n = 5500), six focus groups (people with cancer n = 10; carers n = 11) and a systematic literature review of qualitative studies generated 14 candidate attributes. The expert panels selected seven final attributes, each with three levels: follow-up call, operating hours, additional technology, operator type, operator consistency, call length and service fee.

Conclusions: Transparent reporting of the discrete choice experiment design process is essential for credible interpretation. The four-stage approach enhanced the comprehensibility of the experiment, as multi-modal data ensured the selected attributes and levels accurately reflect CISS caller priorities, which may be applicable to other choice-based studies.