Measuring the effect of treatment on quality of life in patients with schizophrenia - Focus on utility-based measures

This paper reviews utility-based measures of health-related quality-of-life outcomes that might be used in clinical trials involving patients with sch izophrenia. Utility-based quality-of-life data can facilitate decision-maki ng regarding allocation of shrinking resources. Comprehensive measures can help evaluate treatments that may provide benefits in one dimension of qual ity of life, while providing no benefit or having negative effects in other dimensions of quality of life. This review suggests that the measurement o f outcome in mental health clinical trials should include utility-based mea sures (e.g. the Quality of Well-Being scale, EuroQOL) which integrate a var iety of outcome dimensions and combine them into a single preference weight ed index.