Funder: ZonMw
How do we evaluate the effectiveness of a home care intervention for people living with dementia, or a palliative care treatment for patients with terminal illnesses?
Not all interventions aim to improve someone’s health. This is the case for non-curative care, for example. In this setting, it is important that the outcomes we measure are relevant, go beyond health and are able to detect meaningful changes in quality of life. Wellbeing has been advocated as a relevant outcome and multiple instruments measuring wellbeing have now been developed. However, some outstanding questions remain: which wellbeing measure should be used, in which contexts, and for which populations?
Prof. Elly Stolk
“I see a major challenge in the scattered and fragmented nature of existing evidence on wellbeing instruments, limiting our understanding of when and how they are most appropriate to use. With the W-MIC study, we aim to bring coherence to this field and strengthen the evidence base for using wellbeing measures in health technology assessment for non-curative care.”
-Professor of Measurement and Valuation at ESHPM
The W-MIC study aims to provide an answer to these questions by concurrently evaluating a series of wellbeing measures intended for use in economic evaluations.
Why this research matters
The questionnaires that we decide to include in an intervention to measure its effectiveness play a key role in decision-making. For instance, governments, funding bodies, and healthcare decision-makers use the results shown by these measures to decide whether an intervention is worth investing money in. Using inappropriate measures may lead to biased results, incorrect decision-making, and inefficient use of public funding.
Robust research methods
The project will collect the largest dataset on health and well-being measures to date in a cross-sectional survey, including over 7,000 participants from the general public, older adults, and individuals with health conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, depression, heart disease, skin- and sleeping-related disorders). The survey included the ASCOT-STC4, EQ-HWB-9, ICECAP-A/O, QOL-ACC, SWB-5D, WiX, and WOOP, alongside demographic questions, disease-specific and generic health (e.g., EQ-5D-5L, PHQ-15) and wellbeing measures (e.g., SWLS).
The project will also include three case studies to evaluate the fit-for-purpose of these instruments in clinical settings.
Open-research practices
We thought it was important to contribute to the creation of a more open and accessible scientific culture. For this reason, we decided to make the W-MIC dataset open-access. This will allow others to replicate our findings and to extend the use of the data. Researchers worldwide will soon be able to freely access and leverage the dataset.
Team
Prof.dr. EA (Elly) StolkEmail address
Prof.dr. NJA (Job) van ExelEmail address
Dr. Aureliano FinchEmail address
Andrea De PalmaEmail address
Resources
To be added in due course.
Partners
The W-MIC project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between academic, non-profit research and clinical institutions. This collaboration was fundamental for the development of the W-MIC project idea and its practical implementation.