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A Novel Method for Involving Women of Color at High Risk for Preterm Birth in Research Priority Setting
Published on: January 12, 2018
Online health information seeking preferences among pregnant women: a discrete choice experiment
Jing Xu1, Liyan Xie1, Qingqing Wang1
1School of Nursing, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China.
Objective:
This study aims to investigate the online health information seeking preferences of pregnant women to provide guidance for optimizing prenatal care information services.
Methods:
From August to September 2025, a discrete choice experiment was conducted among 342 pregnant women recruited by convenience sampling from two tertiary hospitals in Anhui Province, China. All attributes and levels were identified through literature review, qualitative interviews and expert consultations. A D-efficient design was employed to create 18 choice sets, which were randomly divided into two blocks. A mixed logit model was used to analyze choice preferences, based on which we calculated relative importance (RI), willingness to pay (WTP) and performed scenario simulation.
Results:
The attribute that participants valued most was the information interaction function (RI = 29.80%), followed by information content (RI = 27.01%), cost per payment (RI = 26.56%), information access method (RI = 8.73%), and information format (RI = 7.89%). Pregnant women preferred online consultation (β = 1.16, p < 0.001), knowledge about fetal growth and development (β = 0.59, p < 0.001), lower costs (β = -0.03, p < 0.001), independent search + personalized recommendation (β = 0.27, p < 0.001), and image + text + video (β = 0.23, p = 0.003). The estimated WTP for online consultation was 42.72 CNY, and this service increased the predicted choice probability by 52.40%.
Conclusion:
Tailoring the provision of prenatal care information services to the actual preferences of pregnant women can improve their satisfaction with online prenatal care services and their adherence to health advice.
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