title: Relative importance of dimensions in the assessment of health-related quality of life for patients with hypertension.
abstract: There are many different approaches to quality of life measurement. Most of these methods consider several dimensions of health status. However, few of the current methods evaluate the relative importance of the various dimensions. We suggest that the relative importance dimension is of central importance in the development of a general theoretical conceptualization of health outcome. Further, we offer a General Health Policy Model that can be used to evaluate outcomes in cardiovascular care and to compare the cost/utility of cardiovascular interventions to investments in other aspects of health care. Employing the relative importance concept requires several important assumptions and methodological challenges. For example, we must select between competing measurement methodologies and we must decide whose values to use in the models. As new research addresses these questions, we expect greater use of the models in patient decision making and in health policy research.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Coons
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000451:nursing / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D011788:Quality of Life