THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DESCRIPTIVE AND VALUATIONAL QUALITY-OF-LIFE MEASURES IN PATIENTS WITH INTERMITTENT CLAUDICATION

The study objective was to assess the relationship between descriptive and valuational quality-of-life measures in patients with intermitten t claudication. in telephone interviews, 68 patients completed a quest ionnaire consisting of a descriptive health status measure (RAND 35-It em Health Survey 1.0), and several valuational measures (standard gamb le, time tradeoff, rating scale, and McMaster health utility index). A ll measures demonstrated reduced quality of life in the patients. Scor es on the RAND-36 dimensions correlated moderately well with the ratin g scale and McMaster health utility index (R = 0.37-0.67) but less wel l with the standard gamble and the time tradeoff (R = 0.10-0.46). Mult iple regression analysis demonstrated that 28% of the variance in the time-tradeoff values and 14% of the variance of the standard-gamble ut ilities could be Explained by the best combination of RAND dimensions. These results suggest that answers to descriptive health-status quest ions cannot reliably predict standard-gamble utilities or time-tradeof f values.