Using a discrete choice experiment to develop a decision aid tool to inform the management of persistent pain in pharmacy: a protocol for a randomised feasibility study

INTRODUCTION: In an era of personalised healthcare, it has become increasingly important to elicit individual-level preferences.

While discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are widely used to measure patient preferences in the delivery of healthcare, the focus has been sample-level analysis.

Using the DCE methodology, this project has designed a digital decision aid tool (DAT) with the potential to estimate individual preferences in real time to inform clinical consultation decisions in persistent pain management.

METHODS: Using a feasibility randomised control trial, this study aims to assess the feasibility of using this Understanding Persistent Pain (UPP) DAT in a pharmacy-based clinical setting and to test processes for a future definite randomised trial.

Community and practice-based pharmacists (up to 10) will be recruited in The National Health Service (NHS) Grampian and trained in the use of the digital UPP DAT.

Pharmacists will recruit up to 60 patients who are living with persistent pain.

Patients will be randomised to one of two groups: using the UPP DAT or usual care.

Pharmacists will follow-up patients as needed according to clinical need and following standard practice.

DCE response data collected by the UPP DAT will be analysed using the penalised logit model, allowing estimation of individual preferences in real time.

We will follow-up pharmacists and patients who use the UPP DAT to gather feedback on their experiences.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study received ethical approval from the North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee (21/NS/0059) and received Research & Development Management Permission to proceed from NHS Grampian (2021UA003E).

The study has been registered in the ClinicalTrials.gov database.

Findings will be disseminated in peer-reviewed publications, presentations and newsletters and made available in the University of Aberdeen and Pharmacy Research UK websites.

Participants gave informed consent to participate in the study before taking part.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT05102578; clinicaltrials.gov.