Preferences for tobacco control health education among Chinese university students: A discrete choice experiment
Yu Chen1, Jie Li2, Xinjie Zhao3
1School of Art and Communication, Fujian Polytechnic Normal University, Fuqing, China.
Introduction:
Tobacco use prevention among university students requires evidence on which educational program features students prefer. This study used a discrete choice experiment (DCE) embedded in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to quantify Chinese never-tobacco-using university students' preferences for attributes of a tobacco control health education program.
Methods:
A DCE with six two-level attributes (organizer, content format, organization mode, frequency, educational content, delivery location) was administered to 260 never-tobacco-using university students enrolled in a Protection Motivation Theory (PMT)-based RCT. Seven choice sets, each containing two unlabeled alternatives, were presented via an online survey platform. Conditional logit models with cluster-robust standard errors estimated attribute preferences; Wald interaction tests assessed preference heterogeneity by trial arm, sex, parental smoking, and peer smoking.
Results:
Of the 260 respondents, 192 (73.8%) were female, and 243 (93.5%) were undergraduates. Students significantly preferred video-based content (β= -0.1899; 95% CI: -0.2723 - -0.1074), online delivery (β= -0.1698; 95% CI: -0.2525 - -0.0872), and comprehensive cigarette-plus-e-cigarette content (β= -0.1320, 95% CI: -0.2147 - -0.0493). Content format (32.0%), delivery location (28.6%), and educational content (22.2%) together accounted for 82.8% of relative attribute importance. DCE preferences did not differ between trial arms (all Wald interaction p>0.33). A significant sex × delivery location interaction was observed (p=0.019).
Conclusions:
Chinese never-tobacco-using university students prefer video-based, online, comprehensive tobacco and e-cigarette education. These demand-side preferences may inform the design of future campus-based prevention programs. The absence of trial arm differences supports the validity of the embedded DCE-RCT design.
Clinical Trial Registration:
The study is registered on the official website of Chinese Clinical Trial Registry.
Identifier:
ChiCTR2300068240.
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