title: Continuous-risk utility assessment in medical decision making.
abstract: The authors argue that for risky medical treatment decisions, conventional utility assessment techniques are inadequate due to their emphasis on unrealistic risk magnitudes and sure consequences, leading to assessment questions that are unfamiliar to most patients, have little educational value, and do not reliably extend to the application at hand. As an alternative, medical utility assessments should be performed in a continuous-risk domain with risk levels matching those of the actual decision problem. In support of this position, the authors describe an empirical study that compares the responses of subjects under a conventional assessment protocol with those of subjects under a continuous-risk utility assessment protocol. Preliminary results show that conventional assessment protocols result in significantly lower estimates of the degrees of risk aversion compared with a more realistic continuous-risk protocol.
authors.affiliation: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
authors.forename: G B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Hazen
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Hopp
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pellissier
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000592:standards; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D012306:Risk; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*