An experimental test of question framing in health state utility assessment.
In the standard gamble and time trade-off methods of health state utility assessment, a specified health state and an alternative are compared. This alternative can be framed in terms of a loss or a gain in reference to the first health state. In this paper, we test whether this framing affects the estimated health state utilities. The experiment was carried out on a group of pharmacy students, randomly divided between the loss or gain version (n = 182). The null hypothesis of no difference between the loss and gain versions is rejected for the standard gamble method, but not for the time trade-off method.
Blumenschein
K
K
College of Pharmacy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA. hemj@hhs.se
Johannesson
M
M
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D006302:Health Services Research; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D015588:Observer Variation; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology