The Relative Importance of Treatment Outcomes

Abstract

Cost-effectiveness studies require one to estimate overall program effectiveness using multiple outcome measures. However, one must first establish the relative importance of the different outcomes. Using an iterative process of group discussion, voting, and feedback of results, subjects ranked nine outcome scales in priority and assigned importance weights. Improvement in client ability to be self-supporting was judged the most important outcome, with symptom reduction second. Involvement with friends and substance abuse were judged the least important outcomes. The group achieved a high degree of consensus, as measured by convergence towards increasingly precise and distinct importance weights.