Treatment preferences of patients with Crohn's disease: Development of the IMPLICA questionnaire

Patient preferences with respect to available therapies must be taken into account if the quality of care of patients with Crohn´s disease is to be improved. The objective was to develop the IMPLICA preferences questionnaire for Crohn´s disease patients treated with biological therapies.

As per standard methodology, the questionnaire was developed in Spanish language, in five stages: 1. Literature review to identify attributes related to biological therapies in Crohn´s disease; 2. Expert meeting to identify attributes most relevant for patients; 3. Scoring of the most relevant attributes and generation of scenarios; 4. Patient comprehension test for selection and validation of scenarios; and 5. Final list of scenarios and qualitative evaluation of those most accepted by patients.

Three attributes related to various characteristics of biological treatments were selected: route of administration, place/duration of administration and person administering the treatment; a combination of them produced seven possible scenarios. The comprehension test gave rise to significant modifications in the instructions, text of the scenarios and response categories.

IMPLICA is the first questionnaire to evaluate treatment preferences of Crohn´s disease patients receiving biological therapies. This questionnaire facilitates patient´s selection of the most appropriate real world treatment option and, therefore, it can be considered a useful tool when deciding the most appropriate and feasible treatment in normal clinical practice.