User:DouglasFindley/sandbox/Health Utility

Health Utility

The health state utility or just health utility value is a number between 0 and 1, where 1 indicates perfect health and 0 indicates death. The higher this value is, the less impactful a particular adverse effect or combination of adverse effects is supposed to have on the quality of life. It is also possible to consider negative values for cases where “there is worse than death” impact of an adverse effect. ,  ,    These adverse effects are the result of a medical treatment and may occur according to some probabilities.

These values express the perception a person has of the impact an adverse effect or combination of adverse effects may have on the quality of his/her life. There are various methods for eliciting such values. Such methods include the time-trade-off (TTO) method and the visual analogue scale (VAS) method.

Health utility values are used to compute the quality-adjusted life year (QALY), in health technology assessment (HTA) applications and in various cost-benefit analyses. Health utilities also play an essential role when applying decision aids to shared decision making.