Background: Diagnosing epilepsy is a lengthy and burdensome process for patients and their family. Although the need for a more patient-centered approach in clinical practice is widely acknowledged, empirical evidence regarding patient preferences for diagnostic modalities in epilepsy is missing. The objectives of this study were 1) to identify to what extent important attributes of diagnostic procedures in epilepsy affect preferences for a procedure, 2) to determine the relative importance of these attributes, and 3) to calculate overall utility scores for routine electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings.
Methods: A discrete choice experiment was performed to determine patients' preferences, which involved presentation of pairwise choice tasks regarding hypothetical scenarios. Scenarios varied along six attributes: "way of measuring brain activity", "duration", "freedom of movement", "travel time", "type of additional examination", and "chance of additional examination". Choice tasks were constructed using a statistically efficient design, and the questionnaire contained 15 unique unlabeled choice tasks. Mixed multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate patients' preferences.
Results: A total of 289 questionnaires were included in the analysis. McFadden's pseudo R(2) showed a model fit of 0.28, and all attributes were statistically significant. Heterogeneity in preferences was present for all attributes. "Freedom of movement" and "Chance of additional examination" were perceived as the most important attributes. Overall utility scores did not substantially differ between routine EEG and MEG.
Conclusion: This study suggests that the identified attributes are important in determining patients' preference for epilepsy diagnostics. It can be concluded that MEG is not necessarily more patient-friendly than a routine EEG in primary diagnostics and, regarding additional diagnostics, patients have a strong preference for long-term 24-h EEG over EEG after sleep deprivation. Furthermore, barring substantial heterogeneity within the parameters in mind, our study suggests that it is important to take individual preferences into account in medical decision-making.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2013.11.029 | DOI Listing |
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)
January 2025
Recent studies have demonstrated hysteresis in studies of syntactic choice in language production (e.g., Koranda et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHealth Policy
January 2025
School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Introduction: Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) provide a method for understanding preferences for service provision and there have been limited applications to the selection of community pharmacies. The validity and accuracy of DCEs rely upon the attributes and levels used. This paper aims to describe the development of a DCE investigating New Zealanders preferences for community pharmacies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Ernst Strüngmann Institute, Frankfurt am Main 60528, Germany.
The dynamics of neuronal systems are characterized by hallmark features such as oscillations and synchrony. However, it has remained unclear whether these characteristics are epiphenomena or are exploited for computation. Due to the challenge of selectively interfering with oscillatory network dynamics in neuronal systems, we simulated recurrent networks of damped harmonic oscillators in which oscillatory activity is enforced in each node, a choice well supported by experimental findings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Exp Psychol Gen
January 2025
Centre de Recherche en Psychologie et Neurosciences, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Universite.
Deciphering whether and which mental processes are accessible for metacognitive judgments is a key question to understand higher cognitive functions. Paralleling the crucial role of reaction times (RT) for unraveling the temporal sequence of mental processes, a comparable chronometric approach can be employed at the second-order level through introspective reaction times (iRT) measures. Although mean iRT correlate with mean RT, suggesting good metacognitive abilities, this would not necessarily imply a direct readout of the duration of the underlying processes as participants may instead rely on inferences based on other salient, nontemporal, cues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Psychol
January 2025
i-FOOD Team, IIA-FoodUPV, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain.
Introduction: Due to the current climatic situation of the planet and the increase in concern for the environment, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) aims to be a model for the university community in terms of the preservation of the ecosystem and prevention of the environmental impact caused by daily tasks; thus, aligning itself with the goals of the 2030 Agenda. For this reason, a project has been launched to carry out the green transformation of the UPV toward a university that prioritizes sustainability in all its areas.
Methods: As part of this project, a survey was conducted using anonymous online questionnaires for the student population and employees.
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