Health care resource allocation uses values for hypothetical health states elicited from the general population rather than patient values. The drawback is that respondents from the general population may not consider possible adaptation to the disease. This study aimed to investigate whether initial health state values change after the respondents were informed about disease adaptation. Three rheumatoid arthritis (RA) states of different severities were used as a demonstration. METHODS: Participants (n=156) were randomly allocated into two groups: Uninformed and Informed. Each group completed two identical valuation tasks, consisting of rating and time trade-off (TTO) exercises, and underwent an adaptation exercise (AE), where participants first listened to recordings of patients discussing how they adapted to RA and then were guided to reflect upon this information. The Uninformed Group valued the three states, underwent the AE, and then completed a second set of valuations. The Informed Group started with the AE, then the first valuations; this was followed by a presentation of patient values of RA states and finally a second set of valuations. RESULTS: For most health states, a statistically significant change between each pair of valuations was observed for both groups. For example, the TTO values of the Uninformed Group for the severe RA state were 0.24+/-0.49 and 0.43+/-0.52, while the Informed Group valued the same state at 0.33+/-0.52 and 0.41+/-0.51. This indicated that both the AE and the patient values influenced the valuations. When comparing the first TTO valuation of both groups, only the mild state showed a statistically significant difference (p<0.10). Specifically, the Uninformed Group valued this state at 0.80+/-0.26 whereas the Informed Group valued it at 0.87+/-0.20. CONCLUSIONS: The results revealed that both the administration of the AE and the presentation of the patient values informed the participants which, in turn, influenced their valuations.