Do misconceptions about health-related Quality of Life affect general population valuations of health states?

Previous research conjectures that misconceptions about ill-health’s consequences of quality of life (QOL) may affect evaluations of health states by the general population. We found that people who were given information on the QOL consequences of experiencing each health state that was evaluated reported a higher relative preference for avoiding living with moderate anxiety/depression. Our results show that providing information about QOL consequences of health states affects preferences; therefore policymakers may wish to consider supplementing existing quality-adjusted life-year outcome measures with quality-adjusted life-years computed using general population preferences that are informed about the QOL consequences of health states. You can read the paper here.