Developing and testing methods for deriving preference-based measures of health from condition-specific measures (and other patient-based measures of outcome).

Abstract

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A Systematic Review of the Literature on the Development of Condition-Specific Preference-Based Measures of Health

“…Twelve of the 33 classification systems that were derived from an existing instrument adopted the 'health state classification approach' developed by Brazier et al [1], which employs statistical techniques to determine the dimensional structure of an instrument, followed by a combination of traditional psychometric analysis with one of the "new" psychometric techniques (Rasch analysis or item response theory) to select one item to represent each dimension. Rasch analysis is based on the idea that there is a latent scale for the construct being measured (in this case, HRQoL), on which both respondents and item response levels are located.…”

“…Several (n = 5) of the studies that took this approach employed expert opinion to enhance content validity and clinical relevance and to avoid redundancy. Brazier et al [1] also recommend exploring whether the number of item response levels can be reduced, using Rasch analysis and response frequencies; only one of these studies [71] did not do so.…”

“…Brazier et al [1] recommend assessing the convergent validity between the CSPBM and generic PBMs, and comparing them in terms of their discriminative validity and responsiveness. This enables an estimation of the impact on the results of cost effectiveness analyses of using the CSPBM rather than a generic alternative and indicates whether the CSPBM is better able to capture differences and changes in HRQoL and condition severity.…”

“…None of these reviews included studies in which the classification system was developed de novo. Another systematic review, undertaken by Brazier at al [1], focused solely on the methods for the development of CSPBMs, both de novo and from existing instruments. Their literature search identified 26 papers describing the development of 22 instruments up to December 2010.…”

“…Thirty-six of the 51 classification systems were not validated. Six of the studies that derived their CSPBM from an existing measure repeated the process on a separate dataset and compared the results, as recommended by Brazier et al [1]. Other studies undertook a separate survey to test the psychometric properties of the classification system (including test-retest reliability; convergent validity with PBMs, HRQoL measures and clinical measures; discriminative validity; responsiveness; and unidimensionality).…”