[Contingent valuation for health care services. Review of domestic studies and outline of foreign investigations].

Contingent valuation method (CVM) can be applied to measure benefits of healthcare services. It is a technique for estimating subjects' willingness to pay (WTP) for a service under the scenario describing a virtual market with a questionnaire. In the present research, we outlined foreign studies and reviewed domestic studies on healthcare contingent valuation. A total of 14 papers from domestic literature (five English and nine Japanese articles) identified with mechanical search engines were verified for the following eight items: the method of the questionnaire; the information included in the virtual scenario; the question form for the willingness to pay; bias problems specific to CVM; validity/reliability, ex post/ex ante valuation, altruistic WTP, and non-health value. The following conclusions were drawn from the domestic studies: (1) several studies were short of sufficient information regarding the virtual scenario; (2) no research proved the existence of bias and the ways of coping with it; (3) tests for reliability were not carried out, although some kind of validity was verified; (4) all involved ex post user based evaluation; (5) neither altruistic WTP nor non-health value was examined. Taken the advantages of CVM into consideration, it should become a useful tool, complementing other economic evaluation techniques. Since its application has just begun in Japan, more emphasis needs to be given to practical issues so that healthcare workers will utilize CVM in a way that domestic studies in health economics will be activated.