Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2014 Mar;132(3):310-8.
doi: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2013.7639.

Development of a preference-based index from the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25

Anne M Rentz  1 , Jonathan W Kowalski  2 , John G Walt  2 , Ron D Hays  3 , John E Brazier  4 , Ren Yu  1 , Paul Lee  5 , Neil Bressler  6 , Dennis A Revicki  1
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Development of a preference-based index from the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25

Anne M Rentz et al. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2014 Mar.

Abstract

Importance: Understanding how individuals value health states is central to patient-centered care and to health policy decision making. Generic preference-based measures of health may not effectively capture the impact of ocular diseases. Recently, 6 items from the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 were used to develop the Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index health state classification, which defines visual function health states.

Objective: To describe elicitation of preferences for health states generated from the Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index health state classification and development of an algorithm to estimate health preference scores for any health state.

Design, setting, and participants: Nonintervention, cross-sectional study of the general community in 4 countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and United States). A total of 607 adult participants were recruited from local newspaper advertisements. In the United Kingdom, an existing database of participants from previous studies was used for recruitment.

Interventions: Eight of 15,625 possible health states from the Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index were valued using time trade-off technique.

Main outcomes and measures: A θ severity score was calculated for Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index-defined health states using item response theory analysis. Regression models were then used to develop an algorithm to assign health state preference values for all potential health states defined by the Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index.

Results: Health state preference values for the 8 states ranged from a mean (SD) of 0.343 (0.395) to 0.956 (0.124). As expected, preference values declined with worsening visual function. Results indicate that the Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index describes states that participants view as spanning most of the continuum from full health to dead.

Conclusions and relevance: Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index health state classification produces health preference scores that can be estimated in vision-related studies that include the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25. These preference scores may be of value for estimating utilities in economic and health policy analyses.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

Ms. Rentz, Ms. Yu, and Dr. Revicki are employed by United BioSource Corporation (UBC), which provides consulting and other research services to pharmaceutical, device, government and non-government organizations. As UBC employees, they work with a variety of companies and organizations and are expressly prohibited from receiving any payment or honoraria directly from these organizations for services rendered. Dr. Kowalski and Mr. Walt are employees of Allergan, Inc. Dr. Hays received financial support for this study from Allergan, Inc., the UCLA Resource Center for Minority Aging Research Center for Health Improvement in Minority Elderly (NIH/NIA P30AG021684), UCLA DREW Project EXPORT (NCMHD 2P20MD000182), and the UCLA Older Americans Independence Center (NIH/NIA P30AG028748). Dr. Brazier had received payment from Allergan, Inc., as a consultant for this study. Dr. Lee is currently a consultant for Pfizer, Genentech, Quorum Consulting, and Novartis and from March 2010–March 2011 for Allergan; he has in the last 3 years received research grants from Pfizer. He has a proprietary interest in Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Vitaspring Health Technologies. Dr. Bressler’s employer, the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), but not Dr. Bressler, received funding from Allergan for this project; the terms of this project are negotiated and administered by JHU’s Office of Research Administration. Under JHU’s policy, support for the costs of research, administered by the institution, does not constitute a financial conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Developing the VFQ-UI Health State Classification System and Scoring Methods Abbreviation: VFQ-UI, Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index.
Figure 2
Figure 2
VFQ-UI Known Groups Validity From Recent Interventional Uveitis Studya Abbreviations: BCVA, best-corrected visual acuity; VFQ-UI, Visual Function Questionnaire-Utility Index. aOverall nonstudy eye mean Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study BCVA (SD) at baseline across all subjects was 76.9 (14.74).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Commonwealth Department of Health, Housing, Community Service. Guidelines for the Pharmaceutical Industry on the Submission to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Service; 1992.
    1. National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. [Accessed January 9, 2009];NICE guide to the methods of technology appraisal. 2004 http://www.nice.org.uk. - PubMed
    1. Gold M, Franks P, Erickson P. Assessing the health of the nation. The predictive validity of a preference-based measure and self-rated health. Med Care. 1996;34(2):163–177. - PubMed
    1. Lipscomb J, Drummond M, Fryback D, Gold M, Revicki D. Retaining, and enhancing, the QALY. Value Health. 2009;12(suppl 1):S18–26. - PubMed
    1. Weinstein MC, Torrance G, McGuire A. QALYs: the basics. Value Health. 2009;12(suppl 1):S5–9. - PubMed

Publication types