Premium
Q‐ING FOR HEALTH—A NEW APPROACH TO ELICITING THE PUBLIC'S VIEWS ON HEALTH CARE RESOURCE ALLOCATION
Author(s) -
Baker Rachel,
Wildman John,
Mason Helen,
Donaldson Cam
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.2914
Subject(s) - viewpoints , preference elicitation , perspective (graphical) , qualitative research , health care , resource (disambiguation) , preference , subject (documents) , management science , population , resource allocation , qualitative property , public health , sociology , data science , computer science , medicine , social science , political science , economics , artificial intelligence , nursing , computer network , art , demography , machine learning , library science , law , visual arts , microeconomics
The elicitation of societal views about healthcare priority setting is an important, contemporary research area, and there are a number of studies that apply either qualitative techniques or quantitative preference elicitation methods. However, there are methodological challenges in connecting qualitative information (what perspectives exist about a subject) with quantitative questions (to what extent are those perspectives ‘supported’ in a wider population). In this paper, we present an integrated, mixed‐methods approach to the elicitation of public perspectives in two linked studies applying Q methodology. In the first study, we identify three broad viewpoints on the subject of health priorities. In the second study, using Q‐survey methods, we describe and illustrate methods to investigate the distribution of those views in the wider population. The findings of the second study suggest that no single viewpoint dominates and none of the three views represents a ‘minority perspective’. We demonstrate the potential of Q methodology as a methodological framework that can be used to link qualitative and quantitative questions and suggest some advantages of this over other approaches. However, as this represents the first applied study of this kind, there are methodological questions that require further exploration and development. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.