ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2020
Challenges and lessons learned from using anchoring vignettes to explore quality of life response behavior.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Time trade-off health state utility values for depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2023Pooled it
- Response shifting: a qualitative meta-synthesis on response shift.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2026Review
- Uncovering the story within the story: a scoping review of response shift in qualitative research.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Assessment of quality of life in cancer patients using anchoring vignettes: comparisons between mixed cancer patients, patients receiving palliative care, and the general population.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
purposeAsking patients to rate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of hypothetical individuals described in anchoring vignettes has been proposed to enhance knowledge on how patients understand and respond to HRQoL questionnaires. In this article, we describe the development of anchoring vignettes and explore their utility for measuring response shift in patients' self-reports of HRQoL.
methodsWe conducted an explorative mixed-methods study. One hundred patients with multiple sclerosis or psoriasis participated in two interviews at intervals of 3-6 months. During both interviews, patients assessed HRQoL of 16 hypothetical individuals on the SF-12 questionnaire (two vignettes for each of the eight domains of the SF-12). In addition to these quantitative ratings, we used the think-aloud method to explore changes in patients' verbalization of their decision processes during vignette ratings.
resultsAgreement of vignette ratings at baseline and follow-up was low (ICCs < 0.55). In addition, paired sample t-tests revealed no significant directional mean changes in vignette ratings. Thus, ratings changed non-directionally, neither confirming retest reliability nor a systematic change of assessment. Furthermore, patients' verbalization of their decision processes did not indicate whether or not the assessment strategy of individual patients had changed.
conclusionsPatients' ratings of anchoring vignettes fluctuate non-directionally over time. The think-aloud method appears not to be informative in exploring whether these fluctuations are due to changes in the individual decision process. Overall, vignettes might not be an appropriate approach to explore response shift, at least with regard to the specific target population and the use of the SF-12.
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