A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.
The conventional quality-adjusted life years approach to resource allocation has greater societal value if it is distributed among many rather than concentrated on a few, assuming that severity of illness is the same.
Several recent court cases illustrate how some states are attempting to mandate physician reporting of all underage sexual activity as instances of child abuse.
Melissa Weddle, MD, MPH and Patricia K. Kokotailo, MD, MPH
Physicians should honor confidentiality whenever possible when screening and treating adolescents for sensitive health conditions such as substance abuse.
The objective is to compare the costs of providing the same level of quality. When resource-use and quality measures are juxtaposed, the resources used to provide the same level of quality can be compared.
Preventing bad outcomes for teens and their offspring was the impetus behind confidential care for reproductive health. Requiring parental involvement created an obstacle to the provision of necessary care.