Testing care-giver acceptance of new syringe technologies

The research design and empirical results of an exploratory study are reported of an experiment to estimate care-giver (n = 29) acceptance of alternative syringe technologies. The experiment included five independent factors four syringe technologies in four sizes (1, 2, 3, and 5 ccs), offered by four manufacturers, and sold by two distributors at five prices; an orthogonal, fractional factorial design of 25 factor combinations was used. The dependent measures included the subject's "short-listing" and constant-sum "purchase" of 100 syringes. Main results: estimated purchase share increased 6.9 per 100 syringes due to the new syringe technology that combined automatic needle protection and syringe-locking features; after syringe technology, most subjects had strong preferences to buy syringes manufactured by Becton & Dickinson; increasing price had a strong, negative impact on purchases; while less important, most subjects preferred to buy the 3 cc size and to order from the (known) large versus small distributor. The results did not vary significantly among care-givers working (n = 16) versus not working (n = 11) with HIV/AIDS patients.

Keywords: care-givers, syringe/needle-point technologies, brand awareness