Background: There has been considerable debate on whether productivity costs should be captured in the numerator or the denominator of the cost-effectiveness ratio. That debate cannot be resolved on the basis of theoretical arguments alone because the final choice also depends on what is...

Background: QALYs combine survival and health-related quality of life (QOL) into a single index, enabling judgements about the relative value for money of healthcare interventions. Objective: To investigate the methods used for estimating QALY weights included in submissions by industry for...

Preferences for health are required when the economic value of healthcare interventions are assessed within the framework of cost-utility analysis. The objective of this paper was to review alternative methods for preference measurement and to evaluate the extent to which the method may affect...

The objective of this review was to analyse the methods of paediatric and adult cost-utility analyses (CUAs) conducted in US populations, and to compare the cost-utility ratios of health interventions by classifying them by disease prevention stage, intervention category and primary disease...

Background: The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lung (FACT-L) is a multidimensional measure of quality of life developed for use in the evaluation of interventions in lung cancer. Objective: To develop a set of utility weights that could be used to convert FACT-L into a single index...

Objective: To determine whether different utilities for prostate cancer screening outcomes for couples, and husbands and wives separately, lead to incongruent screening recommendations. Methods: We evaluated survey results of 168 married couples from three family practice centers in Texas, USA....

Background: The correct valuation of health state scenarios is important for economic analyses, disease burden assessment and setting clinical guidelines. However, it is unclear whether we should use individual or group valuations. We aimed to compare individual and group valuations of a range...

Objectives: To obtain health-related quality-of-life (HR-QOL) valuations (or `utilities') from New Zealand women for four health states representative of advanced (metastatic) breast cancer, suitable for use in cost-utility analysis, and to compare four valuation methodologies. Methods: Written...