Economic Evaluation of an Investment in Medical Websites and Medical Web-Based Services
Willingness to Pay Questions Formation
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- 22.4Participants Recruitment
- 22.5Survey’s Data Analysis
22.3Willingness to Pay Questions FormationThe questions of the section 2 regarding the Willingness to Pay of the participants were formatted in a combination of (closed form) discrete-choice and open-end form of questions since the participants were be asked to choose one of a set of predefined monetary values the option that represents better their maximum WTP but also there was an option if they want to state any other value in case they don’t find the discreet choices representative enough. By using this structure of questions, we can overcome the difficulty of the participants to answer open-ended questions regarding their Willingness to Pay and also eliminate the bound bias of discrete-choice form (Frew et al., 2004, Ryan et al., 2004). According to Ryan et al. (1997) there are four main methods used in a contingent valuation. The first is the bidding method which is the first method developed and its main use was in Internet services. The participants in this setting are asked if they accept a specific initial value for a commodity/service and depending to their answer the price is rise or fall in order the actor of the evaluation to determine their maximum WTP (Ryan et al., 1997). This method is prone to the starting point bias meaning that the valuation is heavily influenced by the first/initial value that is proposed to the participants (Frew et al., 2004). A variation of this is the payment card method in which the participants are asked to choose from a range of bids which one presents better their own preference with the actual amount to be between their choice and the next bigger bid (Ryan et al., 1997; Mitchell and Carson, 1989). The third method is the close-ended method which presents some similarities to the bidding method but here the participants sample is separated into subsamples and in its one is presented a different value for the commodity/service under evaluation (Ryan et al., 1997; Mitchell and Carson, 1989; Bala et.al, 1998). Then the participants are asked if they accept that value or not. In a more recent variation of this method two dichotomous questions are asked to the participants in order to define also the level of certainty of their answer. This technique has the advantage that reflect better the everyday preferences of the public but the estimation of the maximum WTP can be proved particularly difficult or tricky and need the plotting of the data as a demand curve with axis the bid level and the probability of saying yes or using a Radom Utility Theory model (RUT) (Ryan et al., 1997). The fourth method is the open-ended question setting, in which the researcher asks directly the participants to state their WTP without providing them any intervals or discreet choices. The actual WTP is estimated by the samples mean and in general this method does not require a large sample (Ryan et al., 1997; Bala et.al, 1998). The disadvantage of this technique is that participants in such surveys often have a difficulty to answer and avoid answering since there no clues to guide them to plausible values (Frew et al., 2004). Frew et al. (2004) comparing the bidding game method to the open- ended question format they concluded that the first produces higher average WTP but this might be a result of starting point bias. Finally payment scale or card method can be considered as a variation of open-ended method but the scale makes answering easier (Frew et al., 2004). The disadvantage of this method the bounds of the scale might influence the valuation judgement of the participants (Frew et al., 2004, Ryan et al., 2004). Finally a question was used to investigate the level of certainty of the participant for his value and taking the “very sure/ sure” yes answers as the true yes. This aimed to mirror better the real behaviour of the participants/users, solving the hypothetical bias by distinguishing between the true and false yes answers (Johannesson et al., 1998; Bluumeschein, 1998).
The initial participants’ number threshold that was set, was considered a sufficient number to obtain a representative variety of views around the willingness of pay of the participants towards the use of medical web-based services and medical websites. We concluded in this specific threshold number after thorough examination of past studies on the willingness of pay of consumers not only in healthcare field but also in other economic sectors as well. 22.5Survey’s Data AnalysisThe total number of the participants that responded in the questionnaire of this WTP study was 423 participants. This number is much greater than the initial threshold that was set and one of the larger participants number in WTP survey in the healthcare field, so this number can be consider adequate so the survey to produce valid results with high grade of generalization. After the data collected from the BOS platform and transferred to Microsoft EXCEL software package, some interesting descriptive statistics and percentages were calculated presented a thorough analysis of the sample’s consistency and a first glance on some interesting results concerning the main aims that the survey needed to accomplish. Concerning the consistency of the sample — as Table 38 presents — the female participants were slightly more than the male ones. This difference is so small regarding the total number of the participants that it cannot be considered statistically significant to affect the validity of the survey’s results due to bias regarding the gender of the participants. Table : Sample’s consistency
Regarding the age of the participants that responded to the survey’s questionnaire, the range was from 18 year’s old the youngest (6 participants) participant to 85 years old the oldest (1 participant). As it can be clearly observed in Figure 38, the age of the participants is positively skewed with most of them belong to the 18-25 and 25-35 age groups. This means that the samples is biased regarding the age with the mean age of the participants to be 31.3 years old and only 27.5% of the participants to be older than 35 years old. This bias can considered normal and expected since the survey was addressed to people who were computer/Internet literate with moderate level of computing skills. Moreover, this bias can affect the generalisation of the survey’s results but following the aforementioned justification we expect to have a small to medium rather than a strong impact on the validity and generalization of the outcomes.
Figure : Participants’ Age descriptive statistics The participants reported 54 different countries as ethnicities/countries of origin, adding diversion to the samples’ cultural and ethnical background and enhancing the generalization of the survey’s outcomes (Figure 33). As it was expected the majority of the participants are Europeans. In addition to this, 44.4% of the total number of the participants reported United Kingdom, 19.6% Greece, 3.1% Cyprus and 2.8% Italy as ethnicity/country of origin.
Moreover, most of the participants were qualified from a higher education institution, with almost 90% of them reporting that they have awarded an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. These outcomes are mainly result of the survey’s spreading activities via higher institution’s e-mail lists creating a biased sample concerning the level of education of the participants and more specific a boost in the number of postgraduate degree holders. These educational level biased is not considered a major threat for the reliability of the survey’s results since nowadays most of the people that are computer-literate are qualified by a higher education institution. The reduction in costs for education, the widespread of educational applications, Lifelong learning and distant learning programs have helped towards that direction. To conclude it is this bias concerning the level of education is considered “normal” and expected and useful to present the opinion, the thoughts and the concerns of highly educated people towards the trustworthiness and use of the medical websites and medical we services/applications. Figure : UK average annual level of income by gender Furthermore, a little more than half of the participants reported to be students followed by the percentage of those participants that reported to be full-time employees with only 2.1% reporting that they are on retirement. This participants’ consistency had an effect on the income level statement of the participants. Since more than half of them reported to be students it is expected that almost 61% of the participants reported to have annual income lower than £15000. If the average annual income in UK is £27,669.52 (Figure 34), this participants’ consistency can affect the generalization of the survey’s outcomes. Download 1.95 Mb. Share with your friends:
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