Pharmacists’ preferences and choice of essential drugs: An application of the discrete choice experiment

Pharmacists take an important role in prescribing drugs and have great influence on the implementation of national drug policies. The aim of this article is to analyze the preferences and choice of essential drugs among pharmacists in China. A questionnaire survey, designed as a discrete choice experiment, was sent to 80 individuals. In the questionnaire, different scenarios were constructed on the basis of six attributes: disease prevalence, severity of disease, age of target group, route of administration, individual health benefits, and cost-effectiveness. Individual preferences and choice were regressed against those characteristics. Binary logistic regression model was established to determine the relative importance of the attributes. The results showed that all aspects proved to significantly influence the respondents’ preferences.