Assessment of respondent acceptability for preference measures in stuttering.

PURPOSE To assess the feasibility of using one or more of four standard economic preference measures to assess health-related quality of life in stuttering, by assessing respondents' views of the acceptability of those measures. METHOD AND RESULTS A graphic positioning scale approach was used with 80 adults to assess four variables previously defined as reflecting the construct of respondent acceptability (difficulty of decision making, clarity of text, reasonableness for decision making, and comfort in decision making) for four types of preference measurement approaches (rating scale, standard gamble, time trade-off, and willingness to pay). A multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance (p<.001) and follow-up univariate repeated measures analyses of variance (all p<.01) were all significant, indicating that respondents perceived differences among the preference measurement methods on all four acceptability variables. CONCLUSION The rating scale was perceived as the easiest, clearest, most reasonable, and most comfortable tool, but it is not a measure of utility (an economic term for desirability or worth). If utility is the objective, such as for cost-utility analyses in stuttering, then the present results suggest the use of standard gamble (rather than time trade-off). These results also support the use of willingness to pay assessments for cost-benefit analyses in stuttering. These findings supplement results previously obtained for other chronic conditions. LEARNING OUTCOMES The reader will be able to: (1) describe how four standard economic preference measures [rating scale (RS), time trade-off (TTO), standard gamble (SG), and willingness to pay (WTP)] can be used in economic analyses; (2) describe how RS, TTO, SG and WTP can be measured; and (3) describe how respondents perceive the use of RS, TTO, SG and WTP in measuring changes in stuttering.