Deck 4: Economic Evaluation in Health Care

Question 1

Suppose you are asked to use the standard time trade-off approach to measuring quality of life and are given the following information. An individual is faced with living the remaining 10 years of her life suffering from severe osteoporosis. She reveals that she would be willing to give up four of those years to live the remaining six in perfect health. What is the utility of one year in the chronic health state relative to perfect health?
a. 4
b. 6
c. 0.4
d. 0.6
e. There is not enough information to determine the utility of life in this case

Answer 1

0.6

Question 2

The direct costs in an economic evaluation include the all the following except
a. hospitalization
b. medical devices
c. transportation to and from the physician's office
d. reduced productivity at work
e. All of the above

Answer 2

reduced productivity at work

Question 3

The standard cut-off for cost per QALY is
a. equal to per capita income
b. 2 times per capita income
c. 3 times per capita income
d. 4 times per capita income
e. 5 times per capita income

Answer 3

equal to per capita income

Question 4

Which of the following measures of effectiveness is not a surrogate measure?
a. Cholesterol level
b. Blood pressure
c. Tumor size
d. Hip fracture
e. Bone-mass density BMD)

Question 5

When measuring effectiveness of a treatment, surrogate measures reflect clinical efficacy and include
a. recurrence of the disease
b. death
c. bone-mass density BMD)
d. hip fractures
e. scores on standard evaluative exams such as EuroQol or SF-36

Question 6

Cost-effectiveness considerations are more formally integrated into health policy making in
a. the UK
b. Australia
c. Europe
d. Canada
e. b, c, and d are correct

Question 7

The intangible costs associated with reduced quality of life include
a. Pain and suffering
b. Lost productivity at work
c. The cost of home remodeling to accommodate a physical handicap
d. Potential income lost due to premature death
e. All of the above are intangible costs

Question 8

Researchers estimate QALYs in a number of different ways. One popular approach is called
a. the probability approach
b. the QoL approach
c. the standard gamble
d. the standard measure of well-being
e. the utility of life approach

Question 9

Researchers use cost-of-illness studies to
a. study the burden of a disease
b. determine the low-cost option to treat a disease
c. compare two or more treatment options when the medical outcome is identical
d. increase public awareness of cost of treating certain diseases
e. All of the above

Question 10

Steps in performing a cost-effectiveness analysis include all of these EXCEPT
a. ranking the alternative treatment options
b. prioritizing the alternative treatment options
c. calculating the ICER between each treatment option and the next most expensive one
d. eliminate treatment alternatives that are strictly dominated