Attribute-level non-attendance in a choice experiment investigating preferences for health service innovations

An extensive literature has found evidence that attribute non-attendance (ANA) is common among respondents in choice experiments. In most of ANA studies, it is assumed that respondents consciously (or unconsciously) ignore one or more attributes of the alternatives, regardless of its levels. In this paper, we present an alternative approach to modelling non-attendance in the context of investigating preferences for health service innovations. This approach recognises that non-attendance may not just be associated with attributes but may also apply to the attribute's levels. Our results show that respondents process each level of an attribute differently; while attending to the attribute, they ignore a subset of the attribute's levels. In such cases the usual approach of assuming that respondents either attend to the attribute or not, irrespective of its levels, is erroneous and could lead to misguided policy recommendations. Our results indicate that allowing for attribute-level non-attendance leads to substantial improvements in the model fit.

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