Abstract
Chapter 2 provided an overview of the developmental years of the EuroQol system. This chapter focuses more closely on how the descriptive system was established, and traces work accomplished on the system over the years through to the major developments of recent years. At the time of the first meeting in Rotterdam in 1987, a considerable number of generic or multi-attribute health status measures had been developed. Very few of these provided a single number index, a major exception being the Quality of Well-being (QWB) measure of the early 1970s (Patrick D, Bush J, Chen M, Health Serv Res, 8:228–245, 1973). Indeed the focus had been on comprehensive coverage in the form of health profiles, e.g. the 130-item Sickness Impact Profile (SIP) (Bergner M, Bobitt R, Kressel S, Pollard W, Gilson B, Morris J, Int J Health Serv, 6:393–415, 1976). As noted in Chap. 2 this emphasis was precisely because measure developers wished to provide detailed profiles of peoples’ health. From the outset the developers of the EuroQol measure wished to have an index of health status, i.e. to place values on health status. This would enable in principle and, it turned out in practice, a range of possible uses and applications of the instrument.
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Brooks, R. (2012). Descriptive System. In: The EuroQol Group after 25 years. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5158-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5158-3_3
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