title: A criticism of healthy-years equivalents.
abstract: The following questions describe the scope of this paper. When decision trees are used to analyze optimal decisions, should end nodes be evaluated on the basis of QALYs or on the basis of healthy-years equivalents? Which measures should be used in communications with others, e.g., patients? Which of these measures incorporate risk attitudes, and which do not? It is demonstrated that the healthy-years equivalent measure does not stand scrunity.
authors.affiliation: Medical Decision Making Unit, University of Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wakker
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D003663:Decision Trees; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013997:Time Factors