A Time Tradeoff Method for Eliciting Partner’s Quality of Life due to Patient’s Health States in Prostate Cancer

Anirban Basu, William Dale, Arthur Elstein and David Meltzer
Additional contact information
Anirban Basu: Section of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Center for Health and Social Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, abasu@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu
William Dale: Section of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and the Section of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Center for Health and Social Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Arthur Elstein: University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
David Meltzer: the Section of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Center for Health and Social Sciences, and the Department of Economics, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Medical Decision Making, 2010, vol. 30, issue 3, 355-365

Abstract: Background. Cost-effectiveness analyses may better reflect the full costs and benefits of medical interventions if they incorporate the effects of patients’ health on their family members. Objective. To develop and apply a time tradeoff (TTO) technique to measure the impact of potential prostate cancer—related health states of the patients on the quality of life (QOL) of their partners. Methods. We developed modified TTO questions and applied them in a pilot study in which we asked the partner of the patient to tradeoff his or her own life in order to reduce the burden that he himself or she herself expects to experience if the patient developed one of the prostate cancer—related health states. We reviewed the theoretical justification for this question and carefully framed the question so as to reduce measurement error and also to avoid possible double counting with the effect on the partner’s health. Results. We collected data from 26 partners about their preferences for their own health, which is influenced by the patient’s health condition. The mean QOL weights for the partners when the patients are the following states are healthy, 0.81; impotent, 0.66; incontinent, 0.68; have metastatic disease, 0.50; and dead, 0.28. Partners’ responses varied by how close they felt to the patients. Low correlations between partners’ and patients’ QOL ratings (n = 15) suggest that the partners were not responding as proxies for the patient. Conclusions. A new TTO method is proposed to measure a partner’s QOL due to a patient’s health. Preliminary test results of validity were promising.

Keywords: utilities; spillover effects; time trade-off; prostate cancer; cost-effectiveness analysis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X09349959 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:30:y:2010:i:3:p:355-365

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X09349959

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Medical Decision Making
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().