Bright line or lottery? On significance and value in medical decision making

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that using p-value thresholds as the basis for making decision on health care spending is not appropriate. In the context of medical decision making, we argue that patient preferences need to be a stronger factor. Depending on attitudes to risk, patients might prefer a medical treatment that performs on average worse than a comparator but offers a small probability of a large gain such as a cure. However, what has been labeled ‘value of hope’ is not yet fully reflected in the decision-making process of drug approval and health technology assessment (HTA). Therefore, patient risk preferences should be formally incorporated within the decision-making framework for regulatory and reimbursement decisions.

Keywords

• value of hope
• statistical significance
• patient preferences
• risk attitudes