PMID- 11151395
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20010201
LR  - 20220331
IS  - 1170-7690 (Print)
IS  - 1170-7690 (Linking)
VI  - 18
IP  - 5
DP  - 2000 Nov
TI  - The concept of clinically meaningful difference in health-related quality-of-life 
      research. How meaningful is it?
PG  - 419-23
AB  - It is generally believed that small differences in health-related quality of life 
      (HR-QOL) may be statistically significant yet clinically unimportant. The concept 
      of the minimal clinically meaningful difference (MCID) has been proposed to refer 
      to the smallest difference in a HR-QOL score that is considered to be worthwhile 
      or clinically important. However, there is danger in oversimplification in asking 
      the question: what is the MCID on this HR-QOL instrument? We argue that the 
      attempt to define a single MCID is problematic for a number of reasons and 
      recommend caution in the search for the MCID holy grail. Specifically, absolute 
      thresholds are suspect because they ignore the cost or resources required to 
      produce a change in HR-QOL. In addition, there are several practical problems in 
      estimating the MCID, including: (i) the estimated magnitude varies depending on 
      the distributional index and the external standard or anchor; (ii) the amount of 
      change might depend on the direction of change; and (iii) the meaning of change 
      depends on where you start (baseline value).
FAU - Hays, R D
AU  - Hays RD
AD  - Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, UCLA 
      Department of Medicine, 911 Broxton Plaza, Room 110, Box 951736, Los Angeles, CA 
      90095-1736, USA. hays@rand.org
FAU - Woolley, J M
AU  - Woolley JM
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PL  - New Zealand
TA  - Pharmacoeconomics
JT  - PharmacoEconomics
JID - 9212404
MH  - Clinical Trials as Topic/methods
MH  - *Health Status Indicators
MH  - Humans
MH  - *Quality of Life
MH  - Research Design
EDAT- 2001/01/11 11:00
MHDA- 2001/02/28 10:01
CRDT- 2001/01/11 11:00
PHST- 2001/01/11 11:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2001/02/28 10:01 [medline]
PHST- 2001/01/11 11:00 [entrez]
AID - 10.2165/00019053-200018050-00001 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Pharmacoeconomics. 2000 Nov;18(5):419-23. doi: 10.2165/00019053-200018050-00001.