Original articles
Are Health States “Timeless”? The Case of the Standard Gamble Method

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0895-4356(99)00074-8Get rights and content

Abstract

The standard gamble method, as currently recommended for use in health care program evaluation, provides an individual's preference score or “utility weight” for living in a given health state for the rest of the individual's life. Many researchers interpret this value as a time-independent or “timeless” one and order health states on a scale of zero (death) to one (full health), regardless of the time spent in the health state. This article examines whether preference scores for a severe pain health state are “timeless,” or in other words whether the utility independence assumption is satisfied. Our study results suggest that for the majority of respondents, the preference scores are not independent of time.

Introduction

The standard gamble method is based directly on the axioms of von Neumann Morgenstern utility theory [1]. A more detailed discussion of gambles and expected utility theory can be found in Hellinger [2]. As currently recommended for use in health care program evaluation, the standard gamble method provides an individual's preference score or “utility weight” for living in a given health state for the rest of the individual's life [3]. Many researchers interpret this value as independent of time. This interpretation is necessary in order to use the values obtained as weights in quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) calculations. These time-independent or “timeless” values are also used in the development of tables in which different health states are organized in declining order, regardless of the time spent in each health state (e.g., [4]).

Pliskin et al. [5] identified three conditions (in addition to the von Neumann Morgenstern axioms) under which QALYs are a von Neumann Morgenstern utility function—constant proportional trade-off, utility independence, and risk neutrality. According to the constant proportional trade-off assumption, the proportion of remaining life that one would trade off for a given quality improvement is independent of the amount of remaining life. This assumption allows us to estimate “QALY-weights” using the time trade-off method and then use them to compute QALYs. Stiggelbout et al. [6] tested the constant proportional trade-off assumption using a time trade-off experiment and found that this assumption was violated. They found that the “utility-weights” for longer time horizons were smaller than those for shorter time horizons.

The utility independence assumption implies that the ratio of the utility of spending a period of time T in two health states does not depend on T. That is UQ1,T1UQ2,T1=UQ1,T2UQ2,T2where U(Qi,Ti) is the utility of being in health state Qi for a time period Ti. [7]. If the utility independence assumption holds, the response obtained from a standard gamble question will be the same regardless of the time horizon in the question. Similar to the constant proportional trade-off assumption for the time trade-off technique, the utility independence assumption allows us to estimate “QALY-weights” using the standard gamble method and then use them to compute QALYs. We report here the results of an experiment in which we tested the utility-independence assumption using the standard gamble method.

As a part of a larger survey, we administered standard gamble questions to estimate a preference score or utility weight for the severe pain associated with herpes zoster (or shingles). We asked each respondent standard gamble questions using two different time horizons and tested whether the responses to the two questions were different.

Section snippets

Methods and data

To estimate preference scores for severe pain, we administered two standard gamble questions varying in time horizon to respondents between the ages of 65 to 70 years. We focused on this age group because the incidence of herpes zoster increases with age. Before administering the survey, we conducted focus groups with individuals who had experienced shingles to refine our description of severe pain. We then pretested the standard gamble questions and found that individuals did not have

Results

Of the 118 individuals who participated in the survey, 114 (97%) completed the survey and provided valid responses. The interviews were completed over a 1-week period. The average age of the respondents was 68 years. About 12% had prior shingles experience, and more than 80% had an acquaintance who had experienced shingles.

Table 1 presents the results of our experiment. Only 29 (25%) of the 114 respondents provided preference scores that were not dependent on the time horizon specified in the

Discussion

Are the preference scores for the severe pain health state time-independent or “timeless”? Our results suggest that, even though the mean responses to the two standard gamble questions are not significantly different, the preference scores are not independent of time for the majority of respondents. The utility independence assumption concerns utility at the individual level, and not at the population level. Thus, in our study the utility independence assumption is violated by a majority of the

Acknowledgements

Burroughs Wellcome Co. provided funding for this study. The authors thank Suzanne P. Gambin of Research Triangle Institute (RTI) for her survey administration and data management assistance on this study. The authors also thank Josephine A. Mauskopf, formerly of Glaxo Wellcome Inc. and now at RTI, for her useful comments and suggestions throughout the study.

References (16)

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