Development of resource-use and expenditure questionnaires for use in rheumatology research

To develop a self-completion and postal resource-use and expenditure questionnaire for use in economic studies of early inflammatory polyarthritis (IP).

Identification of cost-generating events associated with early IP through a literature review and focus groups of IP patients and their partners. The information obtained was used to inform the development of self-completion postal resource-use and expenditure data collection instruments/questionnaires in terms of structure and content. Finally, the developed questionnaire was pilot-tested and validated in populations in 2 geographically different areas.

The main cost categories identified through the focus groups, and used in the development of the questionnaires, included forgone leisure time and activities, reliance on other people, life events, emotions, help with everyday chores, travel, and over-the-counter medication. Pilot-testing the questionnaires resulted in high unit and item response rates, and high acceptability and ease of completion by respondents, as well as generalizability to different geographical settings. Where possible, collected data were validated against alternative data sources, and agreement was good.

Overall, resource-use and expenditure questionnaires developed in this study were shown to be highly acceptable to respondents, easy to complete, and generalizable to different geographical settings within the UK.