Threshold Technique for eliciting patient preferences
The Threshold Technique helps find out what level of benefit patients need to accept a treatment, or how much risk they are willing to take. It asks patients directly when a treatment’s benefits outweigh its risks for them personally.
At a glance
Use when
Engaging patients in benefit-risk assessment, supporting regulatory submissions, designing patient-centered treatment strategies, or evaluating new therapies with significant risk-benefit trade-offs.
Avoid when
Patients lack sufficient understanding of the medical context, risks, or benefits; when preference data must be aggregated without individual-level variation; in emergencies where preference elicitation is impractical.
Inputs
Patient-reported outcomes, treatment benefit profiles, risk information, and clinical context.
Outputs
Quantitative threshold values representing patient trade-offs between benefits and risks, subgroup preference patterns.
How it works
The Threshold Technique is a preference-elicitation method used to quantify patient trade-offs between benefits and risks. It identifies individual thresholds—such as the minimum improvement in health outcome or the maximum acceptable risk level—required for a patient to accept a treatment, providing quantitative insights into benefit-risk preferences.
- HTA domains
- Patient and Social Aspects
- Assumptions
- Patients can meaningfully evaluate and express trade-offs between treatment benefits and risks; clinical information is presented in an understandable format.
- Strengths
- Directly captures individual patient trade-off thresholds; supports personalized decision-making; generates interpretable, actionable preference data.
- Limitations
- Relies on patients' understanding of benefit and risk information; may be influenced by cognitive biases or framing effects; requires careful design to avoid misinterpretation.
- Also known as
- Threshold Technique, Benefit-Risk Threshold Method
Questions this answers
- › What level of benefit do patients require to accept a given treatment?
- › What is the maximum risk patients are willing to tolerate for a specific health improvement?
- › How do individual patient preferences vary regarding benefit-risk trade-offs?
- › At what point do patients perceive a treatment as worthwhile?
- › How can patient input inform benefit-risk assessments in regulatory or clinical decisions?
- › What are the preference thresholds across different patient subgroups?
References & sources
Similar by meaning
- Threshold Approach to Clinical Decision Making (Pauker-Kassirer)
- IQWiG threshold method for extent of added benefit (minor/considerable/major)
- ISPOR Quantitative Benefit-Risk Assessment Good Practices
- ISPOR Roadmap for Patient-Preference Studies in Decision Making
- IMI PREFER Framework and Recommendations
Beta record. Based on the original catalogue summary; primary-source enrichment pending.