Cancer Patients’ Preferences for Psychological Counselling: A Cross-Sectional Study Using Full-Profile Conjoint Analysis in Japan

Abstract Background: Psychological counselling is an effective non-pharmacological intervention for cancer patients facing psychological distress. However, there are barriers to applying counselling in clinical settings because some cancer patients feel that it is a burden and subsequently drop out. This study assessed cancer patients’ preferences for psychological counselling using a conjoint analysis approach.Methods: We conducted a single-center, cross-sectional study using a self-reported questionnaire. The data were collected from outpatients and inpatients at the departments of Respiratory Medicine, Gastrointestinal Surgery, Female Pelvic Surgery, and Head and Neck Surgery from a university hospital between March 2018 and March 2020. The questionnaire, developed from an interview with a clinical psychologist, asked for patients’ preferences for counselling with 48 scenarios according to a combination of type, length, price, and frequency. We conducted a conjoint analysis, calculating the relative importance and part-worth value of each factor.Results: According to the conjoint analysis modeling, cancer patients consider the type as the most important factor when deciding whether to undergo counselling (relative importance: 37.5%), followed by frequency (23.4%), price (19.6%), and length (19.5%). Cancer patients value life reviews highly among the four counselling types. However, women and younger patients valued counselling for emotional control the highest, with advanced cancer patients valuing counselling for problem solving the most.Conclusions: The results reveal that cancer patients consider the type and content of counselling to be the most important factors in the selection process, although preferences depend on individual characteristics. This is the first study to clarify cancer patients’ preferences for psychological counselling using conjoint analysis and proposes a new economical method in the psycho-oncology field.