Exploring health preferences in sociodemographic and health related groupsthrough the paired comparison of the items of the Nottingham Health Profile

Background-Preference weighted measures of health related quality of life a re necessary for cost effectiveness calculations involving quality of life adjustment. There are conflicting data about the influence of factors such as sociodemographic and health related variables on health preferences. Study objective-The relative values attached to the items of the Spanish ve rsion of the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) were assessed to make comparis ons across social and health subgroups. Design and participants-Preference values were obtained in sets of 250 to 2 53 persons (total n=1258) using the method of paired comparisons after all possible pairs of NHP items had been presented to respondents for judgement of severity. chi(2) Tests and Spearman's correlations among item ranks wer e calculated. Main results-Findings show that preferences elicited with the method of pai red comparisons are consistent and independent of the sample from which the y are obtained (mean correlation coefficients across subgroups range from 0 .87 to 0.96). Conclusion-The evaluation of health did not seem to be related to sociodemo graphic variables (gender, age, social class) or to the health status of th e respondents, suggesting that health preferences are stable across differe nt populations.