Healthcare use and costs in the last six months of life by level of care and cause of death.

Background: Existing knowledge on healthcare use and costs in the last months of life is often limited to one patient group (i.e., cancer patients) and one level of healthcare (i.

A Norwegian 15D value algorithm: proposing a new procedure to estimate 15D value algorithms.

Purpose: So far there is no Norwegian value algorithm to inform healthcare decision making. The 15D health state values estimated with the original 15D valuation procedure tend to be higher than the values of other generic preference-based health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instruments. The main purpose of this study was to use a new 15D valuation procedure to estimate Norwegian 15D health state values and to explore their empirical performance.

Comparing 15D Valuation Studies in Norway and Finland-Challenges When Combining Information from Several Valuation Tasks.

Background: The 15D is a generic preference-based health-related quality-of-life instrument developed in Finland. Values for the 15D instrument are estimated by combining responses to three distinct valuation tasks. The impact of how these tasks are combined is relatively unexplored.

"When I saw walking I just kind of took it as wheeling": interpretations of mobility-related items in generic, preference-based health state instruments in the context of spinal cord injury.

Background: In health economic analyses, health states are typically valued using instruments with few items per dimension. Due to the generic (and often reductionist) nature of such instruments, certain groups of respondents may experience challenges in describing their health state. This study is concerned with generic, preference-based health state instruments that provide information for decisions about the allocation of resources in health care.