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Background: The CarerQol instrument can be used in economic evaluations to measure the care-related quality of life of informal caregivers. Tariff sets are available for Australia, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA., Objective: Our objective was to develop tariff sets for the CarerQol instrument for Hungary, Poland and Slovenia and to compare these with the existing value sets., Methods: Discrete-choice experiments were carried out in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. Data were collected through an online survey between November 2018 and January 2019, using representative samples of 1000 respondents per country. Tariffs were calculated from coefficient estimates from panel mixed multinomial logit models with random parameters., Results: All seven CarerQol domains contributed significantly to the utility associated with different caregiving situations. Attributes valued highest were 'physical health' (tariffs for no problems were 15.6-21.8), 'mental health' (18.1-18.9) and 'fulfilment' (16.3-22.9). Value sets were comparable across the countries, although in Poland 'a lot of fulfilment' was valued higher (22.9) than in Hungary (16.3) and Slovenia (17.1). Compared with existing value sets, in the three Central European countries, 'fulfilment' was more important, whereas 'financial problems' were less important., Conclusion: For the first time in the Central and Eastern European region, country-specific tariffs are now available for the Hungarian, Polish and Slovenian versions of the CarerQol instrument. This facilitates inclusion of the impact of informal care in economic evaluations. Our results can be used to develop and evaluate country-specific health policy strategies to support informal caregivers. The differences found in informal care preferences highlight the limited transferability of CarerQol tariffs across European regions.

Purpose: The pressure on healthcare budgets remains high, partially due to the ageing population. Economic evaluation can be a helpful tool to inform resource allocation in publicly financed systems. Such evaluations frequently use health-related outcome measures. However, in areas such as care of older people, improving health outcomes is not necessarily the main focus of care interventions and broader outcome measures, including outcomes for those providing informal care, may be preferred when evaluating such interventions. This paper validates a recently introduced well-being measure, the ICECAP-O, in a population of informal carers for people with dementia from eight European countries., Methods: Convergent and discriminant validity tests were performed to validate the ICECAP-O using data obtained in a sample of 451 respondents from Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the UK. These respondents completed a number of standardized questionnaires within the framework of the Actifcare project., Results: The ICECAP-O performed well among informal carers, in terms of both convergent and discriminant validity. In the multivariate analysis, it was found to be significantly associated with the age of the person with dementia, EQ-5D-5L health problem index of the person with dementia, carer-patient relationship, care recipient CDR, carer LSNS Score, the PAI score, and Perseverance Time., Conclusion: The ICECAP-O appears to be a valid measure of well-being in informal carers for people with dementia. The ICECAP-O may therefore be useful as an outcome measure in economic evaluations of interventions aimed at such informal carers, when these aim to improve well-being beyond health.

Background: Interventions in health care often not only have an effect on patients, but also on their informal caregivers. Caregiving can have a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of carers. Ignoring these spillovers in economic evaluations risks labelling interventions mistakenly as cost-effective, at the expense of informal caregivers., Objective: This paper investigates willingness-to-accept (WTA) values for an hour of informal care, corrected for positive and negative impacts of informal care, to facilitate the inclusion of informal care hours on the cost side of economic evaluations without double-counting spillover effects., Methods: A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted among a representative sample of the adult population in the Netherlands (n = 552) in September 2011. An experimental design minimizing the D-error was used to construct choice sets with two unlabelled alternatives with the attributes 'hours caregiving', 'monetary compensation for caregiving' and seven impacts of caregiving. To operationalize the random utility model, we used a panel mixed multinomial logit (MMNL) parameter model. For calculation of WTA, we used both population-level parameters and individual-level parameters., Results: The mean WTA for an additional hour of informal care, corrected for positive and negative impacts of informal care, was €14.57. The signs of the coefficients were all in the expected directions., Conclusions: This study reports a preference-based monetary value for informal care, corrected for other impacts. This valuation facilitates the inclusion of informal care hours on the cost side in economic evaluations without double-counting any spillover effects included on the effects side.

Background: Families and friends provide a considerable proportion of care for patients and elderly people. Caregiving can have substantial effects on caregivers' lives, health, and well-being. However, because clinical trials rarely assess these effects, no information on caregiver burden is available when evaluating the cost effectiveness of treatments., Objective: This study develops an algorithm for estimating caregiver time using information that is typically available in clinical trials: the EQ-5D scores of patients and their gender., Methods: Four datasets with a total of 8012 observations of dyads of caregivers and a gamma model with a log-link estimated with the Bayesian approach were used to estimate the statistical association between patient scores on the EQ-5D-3L dimensions and the numbers of hours of care provided by caregivers during the previous week. The model predicts hours of care as mean point estimates with 95% credible intervals or entire distributions., Results: Model predictions of hours of care based on the five EQ-5D dimensions ranged from 13.06 (12.7-14.5) h/week for female patients reporting no health problems but receiving informal care to 52.82 (39.38-66.26) for male patients with the highest level of problems on all EQ-5D dimensions., Conclusions: The iCARE algorithm developed in this study allows researchers who only have patient-level EQ-5D data to estimate the mean hours of informal care received per week, including a 95% Bayesian credible interval. Caregiver time can be multiplied with a monetary value for caregiving, enabling the inclusion of informal care costs in economic evaluations. We recommend using the tool for samples that fall within the confidence intervals of the characteristics of our samples: men (age range 47.0-104.2 years), women (age range 55-103 years).

Background: Informal care is often not included in economic evaluations in healthcare, while the impact of caregiving can be relevant for cost-effectiveness recommendations from a societal perspective. The impact of informal care can be measured and valued with the CarerQol instrument, which measures the impact of informal care on seven important burden dimensions (CarerQol-7D) and values this in terms of general quality of life (CarerQol-VAS). The CarerQol can be included at the effect side of multi-criteria analyses of patient interventions or in cost-effectiveness or utility analysis of interventions targeted at caregivers., Objective: At present, utility scores based on relative utility weights for the CarerQol-7D are only available for the Netherlands. This study calculates CarerQol-7D tariffs for Australia, Germany, Sweden, UK, and US., Methods: Data were collected among the general population in Australia, Germany, Sweden, UK, and US by an Internet survey. Utility weights were collected with a discrete choice experiment with two unlabeled alternatives described in terms of the seven CarerQol-7D dimensions. An efficient experimental design with priors obtained from the Netherlands was used to create the choice sets. Data was analyzed with a panel mixed multinomial logit model with random parameters., Results: In all five countries, the CarerQol-7D dimensions were significantly associated with the utility of informal care situations. Physical health problems were most strongly associated with the utility for informal care situations. The tariff was constructed by adding up the relative utility weights per category of all CarerQol-7D dimensions for each country separately., Conclusion: The CarerQol tariffs for Australia, Germany, Sweden, UK, and US facilitate the inclusion of informal care in economic evaluations.

Objectives: To elicit willingness-to-accept (WTA) values for informal care based on the preferences of informal carers and noncarers., Methods: Two surveys were conducted with a sample of carers (n = 202) and a sample of noncarers (n = 200). Individuals in both groups were asked three questions in which they had to state the minimum monetary compensation they would require (WTA) if they had to look after a person described in a hypothetical scenario for one extra hour per day. Furthermore, carers were asked for the compensation they would demand if they had to be in charge of their actual care recipient for one extra hour per day., Results: No significant differences were found between the distributions of carers' and noncarers' WTA values. Overall, respondents' valuations were sensitive to and consistent with their preferences over the tasks to be carried out in the extra hour of informal care. On average, carers required a lower monetary compensation for one extra hour taking care of their loved one (mean/median WTA values €5.2/€4.5) than if they had to devote that time to look after the hypothetical care recipient (mean/median WTA values €6.4/€5.5). More than half of the carers stated the same value under the two caring situations, which suggests that carers' WTA values were influenced by their own experience providing informal care., Conclusions: Our results show that it is feasible to derive a monetary valuation for informal care from the preferences of noncarers., (Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Informal care makes an important contribution to societal welfare. However, it may involve substantial time costs and can have a considerable negative effect on the health and well-being of informal caregivers. These costs and effects of informal caregiving are often excluded in economic evaluations of healthcare interventions. The impact of this exclusion on the outcomes of these evaluations is largely unknown., Objectives: This study aimed to explore the inclusion of informal care in economic evaluations and the potential impact of the costs and effects of informal caregiving on cost-effectiveness outcomes., Methods: A systematic review was conducted to identify economic evaluations of interventions in four distinct disease areas where informal care is potentially important: Alzheimer's disease, metastatic colorectal cancer, Parkinson's disease and rheumatoid arthritis. It was recorded how often economic evaluations included informal caregiving. Next, for the studies including informal care, the impact on cost-effectiveness outcomes was determined by removing informal care costs and effects of the cost-effectiveness calculations and recalculating the outcomes. The new cost-effectiveness outcomes were then compared with the original reported outcomes., Results: The study identified 100 economic evaluations investigating interventions targeted at Alzheimer's disease (n = 25), metastatic colorectal cancer (n = 24), Parkinson's disease (n = 8) and rheumatoid arthritis (n = 43). Twenty-three of these evaluations (23 %) included costs and/or effects of informal caregiving: 64 % of the Alzheimer's disease studies, 0 % of the metastatic colorectal cancer studies, 13 % of Parkinson's disease studies and 14 % of rheumatoid arthritis studies. When informal care was included, this mostly concerned time costs. Studies rarely included both costs and effects. The effect of including or excluding informal care costs or effects on cost-effectiveness outcomes in most studies was modest, but in some studies the impact was strong., Conclusion: Most economic evaluations in the area of Alzheimer's disease include costs and/or effects related to informal caregiving. However, in other disease areas where informal caregiving is common it seems that the majority of economic evaluations ignore informal caregiving. The inclusion of informal care can have a strong impact on cost-effectiveness outcomes. Future economic evaluations should therefore consider the relevance of informal care in the context of their study, and either include these costs and effects or justify why they were excluded.

Economic evaluations of health interventions aim to support decision making in healthcare. To effectively do so, evaluations need to include all relevant costs and effects of an intervention. Informal care provided by family or friends is an important element of care for many patients, but can have a profound impact on the health and well-being of carers. Therefore, informal care should be considered in economic evaluations of health interventions. Different methods to do so exist. This paper provides an overview of state-of-the-art methods available for this purpose, illustrated with practical examples. Since the choice of measurement and valuation technique depends on the type and perspective of the economic evaluation, this paper supports researchers in choosing the appropriate techniques to include informal care in their economic evaluation of a health intervention. We discuss the different approaches to measuring and valuing informal care, covering both partial and full valuation methods, allowing inclusion as costs or effects.