Advanced Search

Measuring Preferences for Cost-Utility Analysis: How Choice of Method May Influence Decision-Making

Contents:

Author Info

  • Christine M. McDonough

    (Dartmouth Medical School, Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center in Musculoskeletal Diseases and the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA)

  • Anna N.A. Tosteson

    (Dartmouth Medical School, Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center in Musculoskeletal Diseases and the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA)

Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    Preferences for health are required when the economic value of healthcare interventions are assessed within the framework of cost-utility analysis. The objective of this paper was to review alternative methods for preference measurement and to evaluate the extent to which the method may affect healthcare decision-making. Two broad approaches to preference measurement that provide societal health state values were considered: (i) direct measurement; and (ii) preference-based health state classification systems. Among studies that compared alternative preference-based systems, the EQ-5D tended to provide larger change scores and more favourable cost-effectiveness ratios than the Health Utilities Index (HUI)-2 and -3, while the SF-6D provided smaller change scores and less favourable ratios than the other systems. However, these patterns may not hold for all applications. Empirical evidence comparing systems and decision-making impact suggests that preferences will have the greatest impact on economic analyses when chronic conditions or long-term sequelae are involved. At present, there is no clearly superior method, and further study of cost-effectiveness ratios from alternative systems is needed to evaluate system performance. Although there is some evidence that incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) thresholds (e.g. $US50_000 per QALY gained) are used in decision-making, they are not strictly applied. Nonetheless, as ICERs rise, the probability of acceptance of a new therapy is likely to decrease, making the differences in QALYs obtained using alternative methods potentially meaningful. It is imperative that those conducting cost-utility analyses characterise the impact that uncertainty in health state values has on the economic value of the interventions studied. Consistent reporting of such analyses would provide further insight into the policy implications of preference measurement.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://pharmacoeconomics.adisonline.com/pt/re/phe/pdfhandler.00019053-200725020-00003.pdf
    Download Restriction: Pay per view
    File URL: http://pharmacoeconomics.adisonline.com/pt/re/phe/fulltext.00019053-200725020-00003.htm
    Download Restriction: Pay per view

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by Springer Healthcare | Adis in its journal PharmacoEconomics.

    Volume (Year): 25 (2007)
    Issue (Month): 2 ()
    Pages: 93-106
    Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
    Handle: RePEc:wkh:phecon:v:25:y:2007:i:2:p:93-106

    Contact details of provider:
    Web page: http://pharmacoeconomics.adisonline.com/

    For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Dave Dustin).

    Related research

    Keywords: Decision-making; Utility-measurement;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wkh:phecon:v:25:y:2007:i:2:p:93-106

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dave Dustin).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.