The Role of Personality in Treatment-Related Outcome Preferences Among Pharmacy Students

Abstract

Objective. To examine whether personality traits, particularly conscientiousness and agreeableness, were associated with systematic differences in health outcome preferences in cancer treatment scenarios among second-year Doctor of Pharmacy students. Methods. An online survey that quantified outcome preferences using profile best-worst scaling tasks was administered to pharmacy students (n=185). The Big Five personality inventory was used to categorize respondents into tertile-based levels of each trait. Treatment-related health outcomes were described using the EQ-5D-Y system and framed with hypothetical cancer treatment scenarios. Preferences were obtained using count analysis for each treatment-related outcome, and differences based on the level of trait were tested using analysis of variance. Logistic regression was used to test for significant associations between higher levels of a trait and choosing dead over a severe health state. Results. Higher conscientiousness was associated with students who had an approximately 20% more positive preference for "no problems" in the Usual Activities and Pain/Discomfort attributes, as well as a 19% more negative preference for "a lot of problems" in the Pain/Discomfort attribute. No differences in treatment preferences were observed across agreeableness tertiles. Higher levels of personality traits were not significantly associated with choosing death over being in moderate health. Conclusion. Conscientiousness appears to be a factor in treatment-related outcome preferences among pharmacy students. Individuals with higher levels of conscientiousness may be more likely to recommend treatments that are less likely to cause pain or discomfort and negatively impact a patient's usual activities.