IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v21y2001i4p329-334.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visual Analog Scales

Author

Listed:
  • George W. Torrance

    (Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; the Centre for Evaluation of Medicines, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Health Utilities Inc., Canada)

  • David Feeny

    (Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, and the Institute of Health Economics, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Health Utilities Inc., Canada)

  • William Furlong

    (Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, Health Utilities Inc., Canada)

Abstract

Visual analog scales (VASs) have long been used as a method of measuring preferences for health outcomes. They are easy and inexpensive to implement, can be administered quickly, and lend themselves to self-completion. Over time, however, disturbing questions have emerged concerning the validity of the VAS approach. This article reviews briefly the history, theory, practice, problems, and advantages of VASs; presents some suggestions to improve the validity of VASs; and recommends a limited but useful role for VASs in the process of measuring preferences for health states.

Suggested Citation

  • George W. Torrance & David Feeny & William Furlong, 2001. "Visual Analog Scales," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(4), pages 329-334, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:21:y:2001:i:4:p:329-334
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X0102100408
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X0102100408
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X0102100408?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George W. Torrance & Michael H. Boyle & Sargent P. Horwood, 1982. "Application of Multi-Attribute Utility Theory to Measure Social Preferences for Health States," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(6), pages 1043-1069, December.
    2. Torrance, George W., 1976. "Social preferences for health states: An empirical evaluation of three measurement techniques," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 129-136.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Parkin & Nancy Devlin, 2006. "Is there a case for using visual analogue scale valuations in cost‐utility analysis?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(7), pages 653-664, July.
    2. Hui-Chuan Huang & Meei-Ling Shyu & Mei-Feng Lin & Chaur-Jong Hu & Chien-Hung Chang & Hsin-Chien Lee & Nai-Fang Chi & Hsiu-Ju Chang, 2017. "Validation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of a Chinese Version of the Emotional and Social Dysfunction Questionnaire in Stroke Patients," Clinical Nursing Research, , vol. 26(6), pages 763-782, December.
    3. Paul F. M. Krabbe & Elly A. Stolk & Nancy J. Devlin & Feng Xie & Elise H. Quik & A. Simon Pickard, 2017. "Head-to-head comparison of health-state values derived by a probabilistic choice model and scores on a visual analogue scale," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(8), pages 967-977, November.
    4. Yuxuan Gu & Hao Zhang & Shahmir H. Ali & Minzhuo Huang & Jingming Wei & Shuyan Gu & Xuemei Zhen & Xiaoqian Hu & Xueshan Sun & Hengjin Dong, 2019. "Social Determinants of Health-Related Quality of Life among Residents in Zhejiang and Qinghai, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-14, April.
    5. Seda Erdem & Danny Campbell, 2017. "Preferences for public involvement in health service decisions: a comparison between best-worst scaling and trio-wise stated preference elicitation techniques," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 18(9), pages 1107-1123, December.
    6. Marieke Krol & Elly Stolk & Werner Brouwer, 2014. "Predicting productivity based on EQ-5D: an explorative study," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(5), pages 465-475, June.
    7. Peter Wahlqvist & Gordon Guyatt & David Armstrong & Alessio Degl’Innocenti & Diane Heels-Ansdell & Samer El-Dika & Ingela Wiklund & Carlo Fallone & Lisa Tanser & Sander Zanten & Peggy Austin & Alan Ba, 2007. "The Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire for Patients with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (WPAI-GERD)," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 385-396, May.
    8. Bromley, Hannah L. & Petrie, Dennis & Mann, G.Bruce & Nickson, Carolyn & Rea, Daniel & Roberts, Tracy E., 2019. "Valuing the health states associated with breast cancer screening programmes: A systematic review of economic measures," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 228(C), pages 142-154.
    9. Peter Hertzman, 2005. "The cost effectiveness of orlistat in a 1-year weight-management programme for treating overweight and obese patients in Sweden," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 23(10), pages 1007-1020, October.
    10. Maria Öjmyr-Joelsson & Margret Nisell & Björn Frenckner & Per-Anders Rydelius & Kyllike Christensson, 2006. "Parental Experiences: Care of Children With High and Intermediate Imperforate Anus," Clinical Nursing Research, , vol. 15(4), pages 290-305, November.
    11. José María Abellán Perpiñán & Fernando Ignacio Sánchez Martínez & Jorge Eduardo Martínez Pérez & Ildefonso Méndez, 2012. "Lowering The ‘Floor’ Of The Sf‐6d Scoring Algorithm Using A Lottery Equivalent Method," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(11), pages 1271-1285, November.
    12. Rachel Lee-Yin Tan & Zhihao Yang & Ataru Igarashi & Michael Herdman & Nan Luo, 2021. "How Do Respondents Interpret and View the EQ-VAS? A Qualitative Study of Three Asian Populations," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 14(2), pages 283-293, March.
    13. Herrera-Araujo, Daniel & Hammitt, James K. & Rheinberger, Christoph M., 2020. "Theoretical bounds on the value of improved health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    14. Malin Ulfsdotter & Lene Lindberg & Anna Månsdotter, 2015. "A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Swedish Universal Parenting Program All Children in Focus," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(12), pages 1-16, December.
    15. George L. Wehby & Hodad Naderi & James M. Robbins & Timothy N. Ansley & Peter C. Damiano, 2014. "Comparing the Visual Analogue Scale and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Children with Oral Clefts," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-12, April.
    16. Charlotte Lindblad Wollmann & Can Liu & Sissel Saltvedt & Charlotte Elvander & Mia Ahlberg & Olof Stephansson, 2020. "Risk of negative birth experience in trial of labor after cesarean delivery: A population-based cohort study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-13, March.
    17. S. A. Lipman & V. T. Reckers-Droog & M. Karimi & M. Jakubczyk & A. E. Attema, 2021. "Self vs. other, child vs. adult. An experimental comparison of valuation perspectives for valuation of EQ-5D-Y-3L health states," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(9), pages 1507-1518, December.
    18. Peter Franks & Erica I. Lubetkin & Joy Melnikow, 2007. "Do personal and societal preferences differ by socio‐demographic group?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 319-325, March.
    19. David Feeny, 2012. "The Multi-attribute Utility Approach to Assessing Health-related Quality of Life," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 36, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Marie-Josée Dion & Pierre Tousignant & Jean Bourbeau & Dick Menzies & Kevin Schwartzman, 2002. "Measurement of Health Preferences among Patients with Tuberculous Infection and Disease," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 22(1_suppl), pages 102-114, September.
    21. Donna Rowen & John Brazier & Aki Tsuchiya & Mónica Hernández Alava, 2012. "Valuing states from multiple measures on the same visual analogue sale: a feasibility study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(6), pages 715-729, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. A. David Paltiel & Kenneth A. Freedberg, 1998. "The Cost-Effectiveness of Preventing Cytomegalovirus Disease in AIDS Patients," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 34-51, June.
    2. Marie-Josée Dion & Pierre Tousignant & Jean Bourbeau & Dick Menzies & Kevin Schwartzman, 2002. "Measurement of Health Preferences among Patients with Tuberculous Infection and Disease," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 22(1_suppl), pages 102-114, September.
    3. Raisa B. Deber & Vivek Goel, 1990. "Using Explicit Decision Rules to Manage Issues of Justice, Risk, and Ethics in Decision Analysis," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 10(3), pages 181-194, August.
    4. Cathleen Mooney & Alvin I. Mushlin & Charles E. Phelps, 1990. "Targeting Assessments of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in suspected Multiple sclerosis," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 10(2), pages 77-94, June.
    5. Zanakis, Stelios H. & Mandakovic, Tomislav & Gupta, Sushil K. & Sahay, Sundeep & Hong, Sungwan, 1995. "A review of program evaluation and fund allocation methods within the service and government sectors," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 59-79, March.
    6. Lee, Jonq-Ying & Rampersaud, Gail S. & Brown, Mark G., 2008. "An Index to Measure Health Status," Research papers 36819, Florida Department of Citrus.
    7. Milton C. Weinstein, 1981. "Economic Assessments of Medical Practices and Technologies," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 1(4), pages 309-330, December.
    8. Benjamin Matthew Craig & Kim Rand & John D. Hartman, 2022. "Preference Paths and Their Kaizen Tasks for Small Samples," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 15(2), pages 187-196, March.
    9. William B. Haskell & Wenjie Huang & Huifu Xu, 2018. "Preference Elicitation and Robust Optimization with Multi-Attribute Quasi-Concave Choice Functions," Papers 1805.06632, arXiv.org.
    10. Paul Dolan & Claire Gudex, 1995. "Time preference, duration and health state valuations," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(4), pages 289-299, July.
    11. Peter A. Ubel & George Loewenstein & Dennis Scanlon & Mark Kamlet, 1996. "Individual Utilities Are Inconsistent with Rationing Choices," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 16(2), pages 108-116, June.
    12. Alan Shiell & Janelle Seymour & Penelope Hawe & Sue Cameron, 2000. "Are preferences over health states complete?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(1), pages 47-55, January.
    13. Marisa Santos & Monica A. C. T. Cintra & Andrea L. Monteiro & Braulio Santos & Fernando Gusmão-filho & Mônica Viegas Andrade & Kenya Noronha & Luciane N. Cruz & Suzi Camey & Bernardo Tura & Paul Kin, 2016. "Brazilian Valuation of EQ-5D-3L Health States," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(2), pages 253-263, February.
    14. Brazier, John & Roberts, Jennifer & Deverill, Mark, 2002. "The estimation of a preference-based measure of health from the SF-36," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 271-292, March.
    15. Peter Hertzman, 2005. "The cost effectiveness of orlistat in a 1-year weight-management programme for treating overweight and obese patients in Sweden," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 23(10), pages 1007-1020, October.
    16. Paul F M Krabbe, 2013. "A Generalized Measurement Model to Quantify Health: The Multi-Attribute Preference Response Model," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-12, November.
    17. Lena Lundberg & Magnus Johannesson & Dag G.L. Isacson & Lars Borgquist, 1999. "The Relationship between Health-state Utilities and the SF-12 in a General Population," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 19(2), pages 128-140, April.
    18. Zeynep Erkin & Matthew D. Bailey & Lisa M. Maillart & Andrew J. Schaefer & Mark S. Roberts, 2010. "Eliciting Patients' Revealed Preferences: An Inverse Markov Decision Process Approach," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 358-365, December.
    19. D. Stratmann‐Schoene & T. Kuehn & R. Kreienberg & R. Leidl, 2006. "A preference‐based index for the SF‐12," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(6), pages 553-564, June.
    20. Diego Ossa & Andrew Briggs & Emma McIntosh & Warren Cowell & Tim Littlewood & Mark Sculpher, 2007. "Recombinant Erythropoietin for Chemotherapy-Related Anaemia," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 223-237, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:21:y:2001:i:4:p:329-334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.