RTI uses cookies to offer you the best experience online. By clicking “accept” on this website, you opt in and you agree to the use of cookies. If you would like to know more about how RTI uses cookies and how to manage them please view our Privacy Policy here. You can “opt out” or change your mind by visiting: http://optout.aboutads.info/. Click “accept” to agree.
Eliciting women's preferences for a vaginal HIV prevention product using a discrete-choice experiment
Browne, E. N., Montgomery, E. T., Mansfield, C., Boeri, M., Mange, B., Beksinska, M., Schwartz, J. L., Clark, M. R., Doncel, G. F., Smit, J., Chirenje, Z. M., & van der Straten, A. (2020). Efficacy is not everything: Eliciting women's preferences for a vaginal HIV prevention product using a discrete-choice experiment. AIDS and Behavior, 24(5), 1443-1451. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-019-02715-1
As new female-initiated HIV prevention products enter development, it is crucial to incorporate women's preferences to ensure products will be desired, accepted, and used. A discrete-choice experiment was designed to assess the relative importance of six attributes to stated choice of a vaginally delivered HIV prevention product. Sexually active women in South Africa and Zimbabwe aged 18-30 were recruited from two samples: product-experienced women from a randomized trial of four vaginal placebo forms and product-naive community members. In a tablet-administered survey, 395 women chose between two hypothetical products over eight choice sets. Efficacy was the most important, but there were identifiable preferences among other attributes. Women preferred a product that also prevented pregnancy and caused some wetness (p<0.001). They disliked a daily-use product (p=0.002) and insertion by finger (p=0.002). Although efficacy drove preference, wetness, pregnancy prevention, and dosing regimen were influential to stated choice of a product, and women were willing to trade some level of efficacy to have other more desired attributes.
