Use of contingent valuation to place a monetary value on pharmacy services: An overview and review of the literature

An important goal for the pharmacy profession is to quantify the economic v alue of pharmacy services. The contingent valuation (CV), or willingness-to -pay method, offers one approach to valuing the benefits of pharmacy servic es. The potential advantage CV offers is that it reflects, in a single mone tary amount, the entire range of attributes (both benefits and "nonbenefits ") offered by the good or service being valued. This paper provides a brief overview of the CV method and reviews 10 published studies that used a wil lingness-to-pay question to place a monetary value on pharmacy services. Su ggestions for other researchers wishing to use this method are provided.