THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTS. By Oscar Kempthorne. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1952. 631 pp. $8.50. This book by a teacher of statistics (as well as a consultant for \"experimenters\") is a comprehensive study of the philosophical background for the statistical design of experiment. It is necessary to have some facility with algebraic notation and manipulation to be able to use the volume intelligently. The problems are presented from the theoretical point of view, without such practical examples as would be helpful for those not acquainted with mathematics. The mathematical justification for the techniques is given. As a somewhat advanced treatment of the design and analysis of experiments, this volume will be interesting and helpful for many who approach statistics theoretically as well as practically. With emphasis on the \"why,\" and with description given broadly, the author relates the subject matter to the general theory of statistics and to the general problem of experimental inference. MARGARET J. ROBERTSON

The Design and Analysis of Experiments

EuroQol: the current state of play.

This article introduces the new 5-level EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L) health status measure. EQ-5D currently measures health using three levels of severity in five dimensions. A EuroQol Group task force was established to find ways of improving the instrument's sensitivity and reducing ceiling effects by increasing the number of severity levels. The study was performed in the United Kingdom and Spain. Severity labels for 5 levels in each dimension were identified using response scaling. Focus groups were used to investigate the face and content validity of the new versions, including hypothetical health states generated from those versions. Selecting labels at approximately the 25th, 50th, and 75th centiles produced two alternative 5-level versions. Focus group work showed a slight preference for the wording 'slight-moderate-severe' problems, with anchors of 'no problems' and 'unable to do' in the EQ-5D functional dimensions. Similar wording was used in the Pain/Discomfort and Anxiety/Depression dimensions. Hypothetical health states were well understood though participants stressed the need for the internal coherence of health states. A 5-level version of the EQ-5D has been developed by the EuroQol Group. Further testing is required to determine whether the new version improves sensitivity and reduces ceiling effects.

/pdf/development-and-preliminary-testing-of-the-new-five-level-4juzrheh8i.pdf

Development and preliminary testing of the new five-level version of EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L)

The world health organization quality of life assessment (WHOQOL) - position paper from the world health organization

The Task Force for the management of atrial fibrillation of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC)  

Developed with the special contribution of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the ESC  

Endorsed by the European Stroke Organisation (ESO)

/pdf/2016-esc-guidelines-for-the-management-of-atrial-ba0601yb9m.pdf

2016 ESC Guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation developed in collaboration with EACTS

Interim Scoring for the EQ-5D-5L: Mapping the EQ-5D-5L to EQ-5D-3L Value Sets

Objective: To measure the health of a representative sample of the population of the United Kingdom by using the EuroQoL EQ-5D questionnaire. Design: Stratified random sample representative of the general population aged 18 and over and living in the community. Setting: United Kingdom. Subjects: 3395 people resident in the United Kingdom. Main outcome measures: Average values for mobility, self care, usual activities, pain or discomfort, and anxiety or depression. Results: One in three respondents reported problems with pain or discomfort. There were differences in the perception of health according to the respondent9s age, social class, education, housing tenure, economic position, and smoking behaviour. Conclusions: The EQ-5D questionnaire is a practical way of measuring the health of a population and of detecting differences in subgroups of the population. Key messages Measurement of health outcome requires the observation of states of health Patients9 involvement in recording and assessing their own state of health is a major element in the process of evaluating the impact of health care The EuroQoL EQ-5D questionnaire highlights variations in states of health which are consistent with previously published results High degrees of pain are reported in the general population. A category for pain is absent and thus undetected in the survey of disability by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/316/7133/736.full.pdf

Variations in population health status: results from a United Kingdom national questionnaire survey.

The EuroQol (EQ-5D) generic health index comprises a five-part questionnaire and a visual analogue self-rating scale. The questionnaire may be used as a health index to calculate a 'utility' value or as a health profile. The validity, reliability and responsiveness of EQ-5D were tested in 233 patients with rheumatoid arthritis stratified by functional class. EQ-5D demonstrated moderate to high correlations with measures of impairment and high correlations with disability measures. Stepwise regression models showed that EQ-5D utility values and visual analogue scores were explained best as a function of pain, disability, disease activity and mood (R2 approximately 70%), although other variables (side-effects, years of education) were required to explain the visual analogue scores. The EQ-5D health index and visual analogue scale are more responsive than any of the other measures, except pain and doctor-assessed disease activity. The reliability of the EQ-5D index and EQ-5D visual analogue scale is as good or better than that of all other instruments except the Health Assessment Questionnaire. Some patients with severe long-standing disease had health states which attracted utility values below zero, i.e. from a societal perspective they were regarded as being in states 'worse than death'. The practical and ethical implications of these utility valuations are discussed, and at present the utility values should be used and interpreted with caution. With this caveat, EQ-5D is simple to use, valid, responsive to change and sufficiently reliable for group comparisons. It is of potential use as an outcome measure in clinical trials, audit and health economic studies, but further work is required on its performance in other clinical contexts and on the interpretation of the utility values.

/pdf/measuring-health-related-quality-of-life-in-rheumatoid-3iisbd4xas.pdf

Measuring health-related quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis: validity, responsiveness and reliability of EuroQol (EQ-5D).

An important consideration when establishing priorities in health care is the likely effects that alternative allocations of resources will have on health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL). This paper reports on a large-scale national study that elicited the relative valuations attached by the general public to different states of health (defined in HRQoL terms). Health state valuations were derived using the time trade-off (TTO) method. The data from 3395 respondents were highly consistent, suggesting that it is feasible to use the TTO method to elicit valuations from the general public. The paper shows that valuations for severe health states appear to be affected by the age and the sex of the respondent; those aged 18-59 have higher valuations than those aged 60 or over and men have higher valuations than women. These results contradict those reported elsewhere and suggest that the small samples used in other studies may be concealing real differences that exist between population sub-groups. This has important implications for public policy decisions.

Paul Kind

Papers

Development and preliminary testing of the new five-level version of EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L)

Interim Scoring for the EQ-5D-5L: Mapping the EQ-5D-5L to EQ-5D-3L Value Sets

Variations in population health status: results from a United Kingdom national questionnaire survey.

Measuring health-related quality of life in rheumatoid arthritis: validity, responsiveness and reliability of EuroQol (EQ-5D).

The time trade-off method: results from a general population study.