Willingness to pay for reduced incontinence symptoms

Objective To measure the willingness to pay for a reduction in the number of micturitions and urinary leakages for patients with urge incontinence. Patients and methods A self-administered questionnaire with a binary willingness-to-pay question was administered to 541 patients in Sweden with urge or mixed incontinence; 461 questionnaires were returned. The reduction in micturitions and urinary leakages valued in the willingness-to-pay question was varied randomly between 25% and 50% in two different subsamples. Information was also collected about the number of micturitions and urinary leakages, health-related quality of life and socio-economic characteristics of the patients in the study. Results Quality of life was significantly related to the severity of the symptoms and was worse than that of the sex-and age-matched general Swedish population. The median (mean) willingness to pay per month was 240 (530) Swedish krona (SEK, pound 1=SEK 11.50) for a 25% reduction in micturitions and leakages and SEK 470 (1030) for a 50% reduction in micturitions and leakages. As hypothesized, the willingness to pay was significantly related to the size of the reduction in micturitions and leakages, the initial number of micturitions and leakages, and income, Conclusions Patients with incontinence problems are willing to pay substantial amounts for a reduction in the number of micturitions and leakages.