For a study, the researcher sought to assess health-state preferences and estimate utility values for tardive dyskinesia (TD) in the general population of the United States, taking into account quality-of-life factors (QOL). Participants were recruited from the general public and instructed to watch and grade movies of professional actors portraying 9 different health conditions, including psychiatric disorders with and without TD and moderate-to-severe TD without any underlying disease. Individual preferences for avoiding certain health states associated with TD were elicited using time trade-off (TTO) approaches. Utility values ranged from -1 (worse than death) to +1 (perfect health) and indicated individual preferences for avoiding specific health states associated with TD. Individuals willing to give up more years of life to avoid living in each health state had lower TTO utility ratings. The mean, standard deviation utility for TD alone was somewhere between 0.59 and 0.38 based on TTO replies (n=157). Mean utilities for schizophrenia with negative symptoms (without TD:0.43; with TD:0.29) and positive symptoms (without TD:0.44; with TD:0.30) were lower than for bipolar disorder (without TD:0.59; with TD:0.46) and major depressive disorder (without TD:0.59; with TD:0.46) in general (without TD: 0.60; with TD: 0.44). Respondents were willing to give up 1.3 to 1.6 years throughout a 10-year lifespan to avoid living with TD, according to utility decrements associated with TD (0.13-0.16). The utility decrements for TD in the study were slightly higher than previously published values, possibly because QOL and social effects were included in the TD health state descriptions. The readiness to sell future years of healthy life for the life decrement might not reflect actual willingness to accept the life decrement, which was a significant weakness of the study. The data could improve cost-effectiveness evaluations that were used to determine the worth of TD treatments.
Source:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35045768/
