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Purpose: Traditionally, researchers have relied on eliciting preferences through face-to-face interviews. Recently, there has been a shift towards using internet-based methods. Different methods of data collection may be a source of variation in the results. In this study, we compare the preferences for the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) service user measure elicited using best-worst scaling (BWS) via a face-to-face interview and an online survey.Methods: Data were collected from a representative sample of the general population in England. The respondents (face-to-face: n = 500; online: n = 1001) completed a survey, which included the BWS experiment involving the ASCOT measure. Each respondent received eight best-worst scenarios and made four choices (best, second best, worst, second worst) in each scenario. Multinomial logit regressions were undertaken to analyse the data taking into account differences in the characteristics of the two samples and the repeated nature of the data.Results: We initially found a number of small significant differences in preferences between the two methods across all ASCOT domains. These differences were substantially reduced-from 15 to 5 out of 30 coefficients being different at the 5% level-and remained small in value after controlling for differences in observable and unobservable characteristics of the two samples.Conclusions: This comparison demonstrates that face-to-face and internet surveys may lead to fairly similar preferences for social care-related quality of life when differences in sample characteristics are controlled for. With or without a constant sampling frame, studies should carefully design the BWS exercise and provide similar levels of clarification to participants in each survey to minimise the amount of error variance in the choice process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In developed countries, progressive rapid aging is increasing the need for social care. This study aimed to determine Japanese utility weights for the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) four-level self-completion questionnaire (SCT4).Methods: We recruited 1050 Japanese respondents from the general population, stratified by sex and age, from five major cities. In the best-worst scaling (BWS) phase, respondents ranked various social care-related quality of life (SCRQoL) states as "best," "worst," "second-best," or "second-worst," as per the ASCOT. Then, respondents were asked to evaluate eight different SCRQOL states by composite time-trade off (cTTO). A mixed logit model was used to analyze BWS data. The association between cTTO and latent BWS scores was used to estimate a scoring formula that would convert BWS scores to SC-QALY (social care quality-adjusted life year) scores.Results: Japanese BWS weightings for ASCOT-SCT4 were successfully estimated and found generally consistent with the UK utility weights. However, coefficients on level 3 of "Control over daily life" and "Occupation" domains differed markedly between Japan and the UK. The worst Japanese SCRQoL state was lower than that for the UK, as Japanese cTTO results showed more negative valuations. In general, Japanese SC-QALY score (for more than 90% of health states) was lower than that for the UK.Conclusions: We successfully obtained Japanese utility weights for ASCOT SCT4. This will contribute to the measurement and understanding of social care outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]