The growth in direct-to-consumer advertising(DTCA)over the past two decades has facilitated the communication of prescription drug information directly to consumers. Data from a 1999 national survey are employed to determine the factors influencing consumers' opinions of the utility of DTC ads for health care decision making. We also analyze whether consumers use DTC ad information in health ca...

BACKGROUND The measurement of utilities, or preferences, for health states may be affected by the technique used. Unfortunately, in papers reporting utilities, it is often difficult to infer how the utility measurement was carried out. PURPOSE To present a list of components that, when described, provide sufficient detail of the utility assessment. METHODS An initial list was prepared by on...

This paper analyzes the relationships between the values and dispersion of residential properties and the environmental-health quality of their locations. It constructs residents’ health-adjusted lifetime-utility function by combining satisfaction from consumption over the lifespan with risk to life from living in an environmentally unhealthy location. It employs this utility function to analyz...

T he article by Hopley and associates in this issue of the BJO (p 982) is a well performed study that utilises a form of healthcare economic analysis that is increasing in popularity throughout the healthcare literature. This instrument, cost utility analysis, has also been referred to by some as cost effectiveness analysis. A review of the healthcare literature using the key words ‘‘cost utili...

INTRODUCTION In health economic evaluations, mapping can be used to estimate utility values from other health outcomes in order to calculate quality adjusted life-years. Currently, no methods exist to map visual analog scale (VAS) scores to utility values. This study aimed to develop and propose a statistical algorithm for mapping five dimensions of health, measured on VASs, to utility scores i...

BACKGROUND The EQ-5D, a generic health status questionnaire that is widely used in health economic evaluation, was recently expanded to the EQ-5D-5L to address criticisms of unresponsiveness and ceiling effect. AIMS To describe the validity, responsiveness and minimum important difference of the EQ-5D-5L in COPD. METHODS Study 1: The validity of the EQ-5D-5L utility index and visual analogu...

BACKGROUND Health-related quality of life is a key issue in prostate cancer (PC) management. The authors summarized published utilities for common health-related quality of life outcomes of PC and determined how methodological factors affect them. METHODS In their systematic review, the authors identified 23 articles in English, providing 173 unique utilities for PC health states, each obtain...

OBJECTIVES A proposed method for bridging the gap between clinically relevant epilepsy outcome measures and quality-adjusted life years is to derive utility scores for epilepsy health states. The aim of this study is to develop such a utility-function and to investigate the impact of the epilepsy outcome measures on utility. METHODS Health states, based on clinically important epilepsy attrib...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of obesity is rising in Scotland and globally. Overall, obesity is associated with increased morbidity, mortality and reduced health-related quality of life. Studies suggest that "healthy obesity" (obesity without metabolic comorbidity) may not be associated with morbidity or mortality. Its impact on health-related quality of life is unknown. METHODS We extracted dat...