Preferences of health professions learners: a scoping review of the use and role of DCEs in health professions education

While discrete choice experiments (DCE), have increasingly been used in the medical literature, little is known about the use of these methods for eliciting preferences from and about students and trainees in health professions. The objectives of this scoping review are to (1) describe the extent to which DCEs have been used in health professions’ education, (2) identify which health professionals have been studied, and (3) identify thematic areas of research in which these methods have been used thematic areas. Between June and September 2024, we conducted a scoping review of the PubMed/Medline, EconLit, Web of Science, and Global Index Medicus databases to identify articles. Studies were eligible for inclusion in this review if they included a health profession training population and if conjoint analysis, DCE, or best-worst scaling studies were used. Forty-nine articles, comprising 60 studies and 21,731 health profession trainees, were included in this review. Medical and nursing students constitute the majority of the population studied. The greatest number of studies have been conducted in China (n = 11) and the United States (n = 8). The two most popular thematic areas in which these studies have been used are to identify preferences for policies and incentives to take a job in a rural area and residency training preferences for medical students. There has been a gradual increase in the use of these methods in the health profession education literature. The extent to which findings have been used for curriculum or policy design is not clear. DCEs are increasingly used to study health profession students and other trainees. More research is needed to explore the validity of preferences and whether preferences correlate with student outcomes or observed behavior.