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One of the important
distinctions in methods of measuring health-related quality of
life in clinical research is between those that measure health
status, on the one hand, and those that measure utility
for health states, on the other. Health status measures describe
functioning and the impact of illness on one or several aspects
of health.
In this section, we
describe:
- Some commonly used
health status measures;
- The standard utility,
or preference-based, measures (also called "health values");
- How utilities are
used;
- Issues that must
be addressed in studies using utilities; and
- Tools
to assist utility assessment.
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