Powell, P.A. orcid.org/0000-0003-1169-3431, Karimi, M., Rowen, D. et al. (3 more authors) (2023) Hypothetical versus experienced health state valuation: a qualitative study of adult general public views and preferences. Quality of Life Research, 32 (4). pp. 1187-1197. ISSN 0962-9343
Abstract
Objectives
Responses from hypothetical and experienced valuation tasks of health-related quality of life differ, yet there is limited understanding of why these differences exist, what members of the public think about them, and acceptable resolutions. This study explores public understanding of, opinions on, and potential solutions to differences between hypothetical versus experienced responses, in the context of allocating health resources.
Methods
Six focus groups with 30 members of the UK adult public were conducted, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using framework analysis. Participants self-completed the EQ-5D-5L, before reporting the expected consequences of being in two hypothetical EQ-5D-5L health states for ten years. Second, participants were presented with prior results on the same task from a public (hypothetical) and patient (experienced) sample. Third, a semi-structured discussion explored participants’: (1) understanding, (2) opinions, and (3) potential resolutions.
Results
Twenty themes emerged, clustered by the three discussion points. Most participants found imagining the health states difficult without experience, with those aligned to mental health harder to understand. Participants were surprised that health resource allocation was based on hypothetical responses. They viewed experienced responses as more accurate, but noted potential biases. Participants were in favour of better informing, but not influencing the public. Other solutions included incorporating other perspectives (e.g., carers) or combining/weighting responses.
Conclusion
Members of the UK public appear intuitively not to support using potentially uninformed public values to hypothetical health states in the context of health resource allocation. Acceptable solutions involve recruiting people with greater experience, including other/combinations of views, or better informing respondents.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Experienced health state; General public values; Health state valuation; Health-related quality of life; Hypothetical health state; Qualitative research |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EUROQOL RESEARCH FOUNDATION UNSPECIFIED |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Nov 2022 10:57 |
Last Modified: | 03 Apr 2023 15:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11136-022-03304-x |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:193753 |