Health-State Utilities in Liver Cirrhosis: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives: liver cirrhosis is a serious disease which can change manyaspects of life of the patients, and their family and also effects society.health-related quality of life (hrql) in patients with cirrhosis can beevaluated using utility assessment techniques. we aimed to study theutility of cirrhosis from the point of view of the patients, their family,and their caretakers to find appropriate interventions, and training andcounselling programmes to support patients.methods: in this cross-sectional study with a purposive sampling method,66 subjects, consisting of 30 patients with decompensated cirrhosis (all ofwhom were on the liver transplant waiting list), 21 family caregivers, and15 caretakers, were included. we administered data collection in face toface interviews and through paper-based questionnaires. we also elicitedutilities using formal approaches; time trade-off (tto), standard gamble(sg), rating scale (rs), and the willingness to pay (wtp).results: there were statistically significant differences in utilities assignedby three groups in all preference-based measures (p < 0.05). thetotal utility score of patients was lower in comparison to their familymembers and caretakers. the spearman's correlation coefficient showedthat the three methods of tto, rs, and sg were convergent in thecaretaker group and divergent in the patient group. the only significantcorrelations between utilities were between tto and wtp in the patientgroup and between tto and rs in family caregiver group (p < 0.05).conclusions: utility assessments indicate that health-related quality oflife (hrql) is compromised in patients with cirrhosis. these data canbe the basis for cost-effectiveness analyses in studies of patients withchronic liver disease.