Using Conjoint Analysis to Investigate Hospital Directors' Preference in Adoption of an Evidence-based Intervention

This study used conjoint analysis, a marketing research technique, to investigate hospital stakeholders' decision-making in adoption of evidence-based interventions (EBI). An efficacious hospital-based stigma-reduction intervention was used as a "product" to study adoption of EBI. Sixty hospital directors in Fujian, China evaluated the likelihood of adopting the EBI in their hospitals by rating across eight hypothetical scenarios with preferred and non-preferred levels of seven attributes, including 1) administrative support, 2) cost, 3) personnel involvement, 4) format, 5) duration, 6) technical support, and 7) priority alignment with the hospital. A hierarchical generalized linear model was fit to the likelihood of intervention adoption for the eight scenarios, with the seven attributes served as independent variables. Monetary cost of intervention implementation (impact score=2.12) had the greatest impact on the directors' reported likelihood of adopting the EBI, followed by duration of the intervention (impact score=0.88), availability of technical support (impact score=0.69), and flexibility of format (impact score=0.36). The impact scores of other attributes were not statistically significant. Conjoint analysis was feasible in modeling hospital directors' decision-making in adoption of EBI. The findings suggested the importance of considering cost, duration, technical support, and flexibility of format in development and dissemination of interventions in healthcare settings.