The Role of Patients’ Age on Their Preferences for Choosing Additional Blood Pressure-Lowering Drugs: A Discrete Choice Experiment in Patients with Diabetes

Objectives
To assess whether patients’ willingness to add a blood pressure-lowering drug and the importance they attach to specific treatment characteristics differ among age groups in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Materials and Methods
Patients being prescribed at least an oral glucose-lowering and a blood pressure-lowering drug completed a questionnaire including a discrete choice experiment. This experiment contained choice sets with hypothetical blood pressure-lowering drugs and a no additional drug alternative, which differed in their characteristics (i.e. effects and intake moments). Differences in willingness to add a drug were compared between patients <75 years (non-aged) and ≥75 years (aged) using Pearson χ2-tests. Multinomial logit models were used to assess and compare the importance attached to the characteristics.
Results
Of the 161 patients who completed the questionnaire, 151 (72%) could be included in the analyses (mean age 68 years; 42% female). Aged patients were less willing to add a drug than non-aged patients (67% versus 84% respectively; P = 0.017). In both age groups, the effect on blood pressure was most important for choosing a drug, followed by the risk of adverse drug events and the risk of death. The effect on limitations due to stroke was only significant in the non-aged group. The effect on blood pressure was slightly more important in the non-aged than the aged group (P = 0.043).
Conclusions
Aged patients appear less willing to add a preventive drug than non-aged patients. The importance attached to various treatment characteristics does not seem to differ much among age groups.