Eliciting EuroQol descriptive data and utility scale values from inpatients. A feasibility study.

We conducted a microstudy to elicit health state descriptions and utility values, using the EuroQol instrument, from a sample of acutely ill inpatients on 5 wards at University College London Medical School. Most current work to date has elicited such descriptive and valuation data from random surveys of the general population. One problem with this is that most responders from the general population have not actually experienced the states being valued. Our goal was to ascertain whether there were any differences between the values given by inpatients and those of the general population. However, the small sample size of patients included in our feasibility study means our conclusions must remain tentative. Nevertheless, the results suggest that patients give higher values than the general population. We suggest that more research needs to be done eliciting values from patients.