Differences in utility elicitation methods in cardiovascular disease: a systematic review.

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Cardiovascular Disease Research
• Health Outcomes Measurement

Background:

• Utility values are crucial for cost-effectiveness analyses of cardiovascular disease (CVD) treatments.
• Existing utility values can exhibit variability due to different elicitation methodologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review and explore how different utility elicitation methods influence utility values for CVD.
• To identify factors contributing to the variability of utility values in CVD economic modeling.

Main Methods:

• A systematic literature review of English-language articles published between September 1992 and August 2015.
• Searched Embase, MEDLINE, and gray literature using keywords for utilities and specific CVDs (stroke, heart failure, myocardial infarction, angina).
• Focused on 41 articles with head-to-head comparisons of utility elicitation methods for CVD.

Main Results:

• Methodological differences significantly impact utility values for CVD.
• Direct elicitation methods generally produced higher utility scores compared to indirect methods.
• General population respondents often reported lower utility values than patients with the disease using the standard gamble method.

Conclusions:

• The choice of utility elicitation method is a critical consideration when developing economic models for CVD.
• Methodology significantly influences the resulting utility values, affecting cost-effectiveness estimations.