Valuing Health: Does Enriching a Scenario Lead to Higher Utilities?

Yvette Peeters and Anne M. Stiggelbout
Additional contact information
Yvette Peeters: Leiden University Medical Centre, Department of Medical Decision Making, Leiden, The Netherlands, y.peeters@lumc.nl
Anne M. Stiggelbout: Leiden University Medical Centre, Department of Medical Decision Making, Leiden, The Netherlands

Medical Decision Making, 2009, vol. 29, issue 3, 334-342

Abstract: Objectives . Patients have been found to value their own experienced health state higher than an investigator-constructed scenario of that health state. The aim of this study was to investigate if patients value their own experienced health state higher than a standard EQ-5D scenario of their health state and if ``enriching'' this scenario by adding individualized attributes reduces the differences between experienced health and the scenario. Methods . Face-to-face interviews were held with 129 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients were asked to value in a time tradeoff their own experienced health; 6 standard EQ-5D scenarios, of which the 5th (untold to them) represented their own health state; and a standard EQ-5D scenario of their health state (identified as such) enriched with individual attributes. Results. The own experienced health state was not valued differently from the own standard EQ-5D state and was lower compared to the own enriched EQ-5D state of that same health state. An interaction effect was found for health status. Patients with better health did not report different values for their own experienced health compared with their own standard EQ-5D description; their own experienced state was rated lower than their own enriched EQ-5D description. Patients with poor health valued all 3 health states similarly. Surprisingly, utilities for scenarios enriched with exclusively negative individual attributes were not lower than those for the own standard EQ-5D description. Conclusion. The hypothesis that disparities in valuation can be attributed to EQ-5D description being too sparse was not confirmed.

Keywords: utility measurement; time tradeoff; EQ-5D; status quo bias; health state description. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X08329343 (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:29:y:2009:i:3:p:334-342

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X08329343

Access Statistics for this article

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