CentERdata

Jonker, M., Donkers, B., De Bekker-Grob, E.

Aug 24 2011

In April 2011, the LISS panel completed the SF-6D questionnaire. The questionnaire serves to validate the Dutch SF-6D (classification for describing health) and to understand the valuation of health in the Netherlands. Respondents were first presented a number of example questions, so that they could practice with the setup and layout of the multiple choice questions. This was followed by the 14 actual multiple choice questions (pairwise comparisons), consisting of part A and part B. For each decision-making situation, respondents were asked to imagine they only had a few years left to live. For every question three options were given, indicating in what health condition the respondents could spend the last years of their life. Respondents then indicated which option they preferred. Part A of every question offered a choice between option A and B; these had an equal remaining life expectancy, but under different health conditions: a better, equal or worse score on the 6 health aspects of “bodily functioning”, “physical and/or emotional constraints”, “social activities”, “pain”, “depressed and glum”, and “energetic”. In part B of each question, exactly the same options were shown as in part A, but the choice offered was between option B, to live longer in worse health, or C, to live shorter in perfect health. The remaining life expectancies and health conditions differed per question, as well as per version (note that option C always meant a perfect health condition, but a shorter life expectancy that options A and B). Respondents were assigned to one of the eight versions. The health aspects were displayed on screen in random order (this order was maintained throughout the rest of the questionnaire). Color schemes were used for the scores on health aspects. The colors were dependent on the group to which the respondent belonged: Group 1: the traffic light colors of red-orange-green, unless colorblind and opted for the purple colors. Group 2: the purple colors (from light to dark), unless colorblind and opted for the traffic light colors. With the traffic light colors, red represented poor, orange represented average, and green represented good health. With the purple colors, the lighter variants represented poor health and the darker variants good health. This was done to see to what extent the colors contribute to the comparatively large weight of the poor health conditions. The variables for the version, the question, the scores on the 6 health aspects and the remaining life expectancies were captured.

lissdata

Apr 04 2011