Balancing societal costs and users' quality of life--priority setting of interventions for the hard-of-hearing.
In this paper, the need for priority setting in rehabilitation, especially in audiology, and various approaches to providing information for priority setting are discussed. A set of outcome measures is proposed, and their applicability to vertical and horizontal prioritization are considered. Two types of measures are proposed: individual problems assessment, and utility analysis. Results from a European multicentre study and a Swedish study illustrate the performance of the measures in the areas of mobility, hearing, and speech communication. For rehabilitation in the hard-of-hearing, the two types of measures provide different kinds of information, illustrated by the results of simultaneous use of the instruments.
Persson
Jan
J
Centre for Medical Technology Assessment (CMT), Department of Health and Society, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. jan.persson@ihs.liu.se
Hellbom
Gunn
G
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D005060:Europe; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005376:Financial Management / Q000458:organization & administration; D006292:Health Priorities; D006309:Hearing; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000191:economics*; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000191:economics* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013060:Speech; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden