Valuing health states: a comparison of methods

In eliciting health state valuations, two widely used methods are the standard gamble (SG) and the time trade-off (TTO). Both methods make assumptions about individual preferences that are too restrictive to allow them to act as perfect proxies for utility. Therefore, a choice between them might instead be made on empirical grounds. This paper reports on a study which compared a “props” (using specially-designed boards) and a “no props” (using self-completion booklets) variant of each method. The results suggested that both no props variants might be susceptible to framing effects and that TTO props outperformed SG props.