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Quantifying the utility of taking pills for preventing adverse health outcomes: a cross-sectional survey
  1. Robert Hutchins1,
  2. Michael P Pignone2,
  3. Stacey L Sheridan1,2,
  4. Anthony J Viera1,3
  1. 1Health Care and Prevention MD-MPH Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  2. 2Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  3. 3Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Anthony J Viera; anthony_viera{at}med.unc.edu

Abstract

Objectives The utility value attributed to taking pills for prevention can have a major effect on the cost-effectiveness of interventions, but few published studies have systematically quantified this value. We sought to quantify the utility value of taking pills used for prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Design Cross-sectional survey.

Setting Central North Carolina.

Participants 708 healthcare employees aged 18 years and older.

Primary and secondary outcomes Utility values for taking 1 pill/day, assessed using time trade-off, modified standard gamble and willingness-to-pay methods.

Results Mean age of respondents was 43 years (19–74). The majority of the respondents were female (83%) and Caucasian (80%). Most (80%) took at least 2 pills/day. Mean utility values for taking 1 pill/day using the time trade-off method were: 0.9972 (95% CI 0.9962 to 0.9980). Values derived from the standard gamble and willingness-to-pay methods were 0.9967 (0.9954 to 0.9979) and 0.9989 (95% CI 0.9986 to 0.9991), respectively. Utility values varied little across characteristics such as age, sex, race, education level or number of pills taken per day.

Conclusions The utility value of taking pills daily in order to prevent an adverse CVD health outcome is approximately 0.997.

  • cost-effectiveness
  • utility analysis
  • medical decision making

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006505

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