Quantifying the Utility of Taking Pills for Cardiovascular Prevention

Background—The decrease in utility attributed to taking pills for cardiovascular prevention can have major effects on the cost-effectiveness of interventions but has not been well studied. We sought to measure the utility of daily pill-taking for cardiovascular prevention. Methods and Results—We conducted a cross-sectional Internet-based survey of 1000 US residents aged ≥30 in March 2014. We calculated utility values, using time trade-off as our primary method and standard gamble and willingness-to-pay techniques as secondary analyses. Mean age of respondents was 50 years. Most were female (59%) and white (63%); 28% had less than a college degree; and 79% took ≥1 pills daily. Mean utility using the time trade-off method was 0.990 (95% confidence interval, 0.988–0.992), including ≈70% not willing to trade any amount of time to avoid taking a preventive pill daily. Using the standard gamble method, mean utility was 0.991 (0.989–0.993), with 62% not willing to risk any chance of death. Respondents were willi...