Course Level: Beginner
Course Limit: 30
Format Requirements: A basic understanding of statistics is recommended, but not necessarily required. The format will be 2 hours of presentations provided by 2 presenters, followed by 1 hour of experimentation with the acquired knowledge with both presenters guiding the participants. The workshop will close with a 30 minute classical discussion. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop, so that they can experiment themselves with an excel-based interactive test environment. In case of a shortage of laptops, groups will be formed to perform the practical assignments.
Background: This short course will introduce the traditional utility elicitation techniques such as standard gamble, time trade-off and the visual analogue scale. Their historical development and underlying assumptions will be covered in detail. Participants will be instructed on how to apply these techniques, with hands-on experience during a practical assignment. Additionally, participants will be informed on the biases that are associated with these methods. Subsequently, modern scaling or latent utility models based on ranking of states, such as discrete choice models will be presented. Here too, the historical development will be covered in detail, as will the underlying assumptions. Demonstrations of elicitation exercises will be provided in combination with basic analytic approaches to derive utilities. Finally, novel methods such as and Rasch-based DC models and multi-dimensional scaling will be introduced to provide a glimpse of what the future might bring.
Description and Objectives: Objectives
- Present an overview of utility/HRQoL measurement
- Describe the pros and cons of each method
- Let participants develop a (basic) understanding of the techniques and models
- Let participants gain hands on experience with these techniques and model
The short course will start with an introduction to preference-based health-related quality of life measurement. The conventional approaches will be discussed in detail and evaluated critically on a theoretical level (axioms and assumptions). We will review the current literature and provide a detailed analysis of the weak and strong points of each of the conventional measurement techniques.
We will continue the course by introducing scaling (latent utility) methods as an alternative to the conventional HRQoL preference-based techniques. A historical overview of the scaling methods and their theoretical background will be provided, along with a critical evaluation of the assumptions.
Once participants have been introduced to the basics of scaling methods, we will go into detail on the various methods, such as pair wise comparisons (BTL model / Thurstone’s law of comparative judgment), Rasch modelling, rank ordering, multi-dimensional scaling and types of conjoint measurement. We will do this in a structured manner so that participants will not lose track of the broad picture.
When the different scaling methods have been discussed thoroughly we will start with the data examination of real research data. Participants will be led through a developed software program that clearly describes the different steps that researchers need to take when handling data from scaling models. Furthermore, they will be confronted with performing analyses themselves and discuss about their results. The workshop will end with a classical discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of scaling models, and their applicability to health care problems and research questions.