Abstract
Background: This study was conducted to assess the potential impact of an unintended pregnancy on women's quality of life. Study Design: We asked 192 nonpregnant women to report how they would feel if they learned that they were pregnant using a visual analog scale (VAS), a time trade-off (TTO) metric, a standard gamble (SG) metric and a willingness-to-pay (WTP) metric. Results: Women's anticipated responses to an unintended pregnancy varied widely. Using a VAS, 8% reported pregnancy would make them feel like they were dying. To avoid pregnancy, 28% of women were willing to trade time from the end of their life (TTO), 16% of women were willing to accept an immediate risk of death (SG) and 60% of women were willing to pay some amount of money (WTP). On average, women, using the VAS, TTO and SG metrics, reported that an unintended pregnancy would create a health utility state (where 0 represents death and 1 represents perfect health) of 0.487, 0.992 and 0.997, respectively. Conclusion: The anticipated effects of pregnancy on women's quality of life should be integrated into cost-effectiveness analyses of family planning services.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 204-210 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Contraception |
Volume | 78 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2008 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Cost-effectiveness
- Decision analysis
- QALY (Quality-adjusted life years)
- Unintended pregnancy
- Utility
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Reproductive Medicine
- Obstetrics and Gynecology