Linking Minimally Important Differences (MID) and Acceptable Regret to Elicit Values and Preferences in Health...

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Decision Analysis
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Traditional methods for eliciting values and preferences (V&P) involve direct numerical trade-offs, which are cognitively demanding and can be unstable.
• These methods often cause discomfort for patients and panellists when comparing multiple outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an integrated framework for V&P elicitation.
• To simplify the process by using minimally important differences (MIDs) and acceptable regret.
• To convert these measures into relative values (RVs) for decision-analytical models.

Main Methods:

• A three-step approach is described.
• Respondents identify MIDs, the smallest important change in outcome frequency.
• Acceptable regret calibrates these thresholds, and MIDs are transformed into RVs anchored to a worst outcome.

Main Results:

• The framework replaces difficult V&P elicitation with simpler threshold judgments.
• It maintains proportional relationships among outcomes and reduces the number of required judgments.
• Internally consistent weights for multiple benefits and harms are yielded, demonstrated with a worked example.

Conclusions:

• Integrating MIDs, acceptable regret, and RVs provides a coherent approach to V&P elicitation.
• The method is easy to explain, aligns with human decision processes, and is applicable at individual and population levels.
• It supports clinical decision-making, guideline development, and health policy.