Contingent valuation

Spillover effects on the welfare of family members may refer to caregiver health effects, informal care time costs, or both. This review focuses on methods that have been used to measure and value informal care time and makes suggestions for their appropriate use in cost-of-illness and cost-effectiveness analyses. It highlights the importance of methods to value informal care time that are independent of caregiver health effects in order to minimize double counting of spillover effects.

There is a growing interest in incorporating informal care in cost-of-illness studies as a relevant part of the economic impact of some diseases. The aim of this paper was to review the recent literature valuating the costs of informal care in a group of selected diseases from 2005 to 2015. We carried out a systematic review on the economic impact of informal care, focusing on six selected diseases: arthritis or osteoarthritis, cancer, dementia, mental diseases, multiple sclerosis and stroke. We selected 91 cost-of-illness articles.

Economic evaluations of health interventions aim to support decision making in healthcare. To effectively do so, evaluations need to include all relevant costs and effects of an intervention. Informal care provided by family or friends is an important element of care for many patients, but can have a profound impact on the health and well-being of carers. Therefore, informal care should be considered in economic evaluations of health interventions. Different methods to do so exist.

This paper reports the results of the application of the contingent valuation method (CVM) to determine a monetary value of informal care. We discuss the current practice in valuing informal care and a theoretical model of the costs and benefits related to the provision of informal care. In addition, we developed a survey in which informal caregivers' willingness to accept (WTA) to provide an additional hour of informal care was elicited.

Including informal care in economic evaluations is increasingly advocated but problematic. We investigated three well-known concerns regarding contingent valuation (CV): (1) the item non-response of CV values, (2) the sensitivity of CV values to the individual circumstances of caring, and (3) the choice of valuation method by comparing willingness-to-pay (WTP) and willingness-to-accept (WTA) values for a hypothetical marginal change in hours of informal care currently provided.