Lunchtime Seminar: Capturing Preferences about Treatment at the End of Life

OHE’s Koonal Shah is a co-investigator in research intended to define public preferences about allocating health care resources to patients who are at the end of life. In late March, OHE hosted a Lunchtime Seminar that examined both the approach and the results of research to date.

OHE’s Koonal Shah is a co-investigator in research intended to define public preferences about allocating health care resources to patients who are at the end of life[1] Research and results to date have been reported in this blog, most recently here.

In late March, OHE hosted a Lunchtime Seminar that examined both the approach and the results of research to date. Koonal’s presentation of those was followed by a critique from Dr Rachel Baker of the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at Glasgow Caledonian University. Her main discussion points were as follows.

• This is important research because little rigorous empirical evidence has been available that either supports or refutes the premise that society places special value on life-extending treatments at the end of life.

• Future studies of society’s preference about such treatment should include, if possible, cognitive interviews to help researchers better understand the reasons for some seemingly odd choices made by respondents.

• The findings are similar to those from the discrete choice experiments conducted as part of the Social Value of a QALY project, reported in: Baker, R. et al. (2010) Weighting and valuing quality-adjusted life-years using stated preference methods: Preliminary results from the Social Value of a QALY Project. Health Technology Assessment. 14(27), 1-133.

The presentations from the seminar are available below.