Comment on Petrou and Kupek: use unadjusted HUI3 scores, not adjusted disutilities.

摘要

In the May/June 2009 issue of Medical Decision Making, Petrou and Kupek report preference-based quality-of-life (QALY) weights for a wide range of disabilities and severe illnesses in children. QALY weights have not previously been available for many of these conditions. The weights were developed by first asking the principal caregiver of each child to report the child's health status and quality of life using the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3). After deriving HUI3 scores from these responses, the authors used regression analysis to produce adjusted "marginal disutilities" for estimating QALYs in cost-utility analysis. These adjusted disutilities are reported in Table 3 of the article.