Integrating Patient Preferences Into Health Outcomes Assessment

Study objective To develop and evaluate a brief, easy-to-administer symptom assessment scale for use as a preference-based outcome measure in clinical trials and cost-effectiveness studies in asthma. Design Cross-sectional survey with 2-week reproducibility assessment. Setting Ambulatory care: university asthma and allergy center. Participants One hundred sixty-one adults with asthma, 59% female, mean age 35 ± 11 years. Mean FEV 1 percent predicted was 86 ± 17%. Interventions The 11-item Asthma Symptom Utility Index (ASUI). Measurements and results Mean ASUI score for this sample was 0.71 ± 0.23, with a range from 0.02 to 1.0. The ASUI was reproducible (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.74) and able to distinguish patients known to differ on disease severity according to clinician ratings (p 1 percent predicted (r = 0.27, p Conclusion The results of this study support the reliability and validity of the ASUI, suggesting it will be a useful, complementary patient outcome measure for clinical trials and cost-effectiveness studies comparing treatment alternatives for persons with asthma.