Adelaide, South Australia – Differences between adolescents and adult values for assessing the health benefits of new medical interventions may be significant enough to impact upon health care policy.
An on-line survey including two health status instruments, the CHU9D and the AQOL-6D was developed for administration to adolescents living in Australia, aged 11-17 years (n=500). Individual responses to both instruments were converted to values by applying firstly the adult and secondly the adolescent scoring algorithms for each instrument.
Both instruments discriminated well according to current health status and the presence of long standing illness regardless of the scoring algorithm employed. Important differences, however, between adolescent and adult values were found, these being more profound for the CHU9D.
This study, “
Whose Values in Health? An Empirical Comparison of the Application of Adolescent and Adult Values for the CHU9D and AQOL-6D in the Australian Adolescent General Population,” will appear in a future issue of
Value in Health, and was co-authored by Julie Ratcliffe from Flinders University, Katherine Stevens and John Brazier from the University of Sheffield, Terry Flynn from the University of Technology Sydney and Michael Sawyer from the University of Adelaide.
Says Professor Ratcliffe, “We have utilised a community based sample of adolescents to highlight potentially important differences in adult and adolescent values for identical health states. Ultimately these differences could significantly impact upon the results of studies to assess the cost effectiveness of new medical interventions targeted for adolescents.”
Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research as well as policy papers to help health care leaders make evidence-based decisions. The journal is published bi-monthly and has over 8,000 subscribers (clinicians, decision makers, and researchers worldwide).
International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) is a nonprofit, international, educational and scientific organization that strives to increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness of health care resource use to improve health.
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