 Valuing health states: the effect of durationClaire Gudex and Paul Dolan No 143chedp, Working Papers from Centre for Health Economics, University of York Abstract: A central task in the field of health status measurement involves eliciting valuations for health states. When these valuations are then used in estimating patient benefit as part of a cost-utility analysis, a key issue is how the duration of a health state affects its value. Previous studies suggest that while people adapt to chronic illness over time there is a “maximal endurable time” beyond which the state becomes intolerable. The pilot study reported here examines the feasibility of using the visual analogue scale method to elicit within-respondent valuations for health states of different durations. It explores the hypothesis that while less severe states are seen as more acceptable the longer they last, more severe health states are seen as increasingly intolerable. 18 members of the general population ranked and rated 15 health states with durations of 1 month, 1 year and 10 years. The valuation given to a health state appeared to be a function of both its severity and its duration. The median score for a state lasting 10 years was lower when the same state lasted for 1 year or 1 month, supporting the concept of a “maximal endurable time”. Valuations for mild states did not, however, increase with duration. Keywords: health; state; valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chy:respap:143chedp Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Centre for Health Economics, University of York Contact information at EDIRC. |
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