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Measuring health outcomes of adolescents: report from a pilot study

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Abstract

There is a need to understand the practicality, validity and reliability of using utility measures with children and adolescents. We designed a pilot study in order to help guide the selection of an appropriate health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) questionnaire for adolescents to be used in the context of a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) of family therapy versus standard treatment for adolescents aged 11–17 years. The pilot study was carried out on a school sample of adolescents in the same age range as the RCT. Adolescents were asked to fill in three HRQoL questionnaires: the standard EQ-5D, the licensed Health Utilities Index HUI, and the child-friendly version of the standard EQ-5D: the EQ-5D for youth (EQ-5D-Y). This report explores the problems with the language and concepts embodied within those HRQoL questionnaires and open discussion regarding how we can value the health of adolescents for cost-utility analysis in a larger study.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to two anonymous referees, to Ling-Hsiang Chuang, Richard Edlin, and David Meads for comments on a previous version of this paper. We thank Bill Furlong, Wolfgang Greiner, Paul Kind, and Victor Zarate for their help in the design of the pilot study. The SHIFT steering committee members are Prof David Cottrell, Ms Paula Boston, Dr Ivan Eisler, Dr Sarah Fortune, Professor Jonathan Green, Professor Allan House, Dr David Owens, Dr Mima Simic, Mrs Michelle Collinson, Ms Amanda Farrin, Ms Liz Graham, Dr Jane Nixon, Prof Christopher McCabe, Ms Yemi Oluboyede, and Dr Sandy Tubeuf. This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme (project number 07/33/01) and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment. See the HTA programme website for further project information. The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academic Unit of Health Economics, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Charles Thackrah Building, Room 2.07, 101 Clarendon Road, Leeds, LS2 9LJ, UK

    Yemi Oluboyede

  2. Academic Unit of Health Economics, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Charles Thackrah Building, Room 2.10, 101 Clarendon Road, Leeds, LS2 9LJ, UK

    Sandy Tubeuf

  3. Academic Unit of Health Economics, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Charles Thackrah Building, Room 1.27, 101 Clarendon Road, Leeds, LS2 9LJ, UK

    Chris McCabe

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  1. Yemi Oluboyede
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  2. Sandy Tubeuf
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  3. Chris McCabe
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Correspondence to Sandy Tubeuf.

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Oluboyede, Y., Tubeuf, S. & McCabe, C. Measuring health outcomes of adolescents: report from a pilot study. Eur J Health Econ 14, 11–19 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-011-0340-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-011-0340-0

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