The CHU9D is a paediatric generic preference based measure of health related quality of life. It consists of a descriptive system and a set of preference weights, giving utility values for each health state described by the descriptive system, allowing the calculation of quality adjusted life years (QALYs) for use in cost utility analysis. The descriptive system and the preference weights are now available for use.

The CHU9D has been developed exclusively with children. The dimensions are based on interviews with over 70 children with a wide range of health problems. Further ranking work with children was undertaken to develop scales for the dimensions and a draft descriptive system was produced. This was tested on 150 school children and 98 children in hospital (including medical, surgical and day case patients) and subsequently refined to produce the final descriptive system. Further details can be found under the publications page.

• Application: generic
• Number of dimensions (questions): 9
• Number of levels (response options) per dimension: 5
• Age range: 7-17 years
• Mode of completion: self completion (proxy completion also available for younger children)
• Recall period: today/last night

You can view the descriptive system in the downloads box above, however please note that this is to view only, so that you can decide if you are interested in using the CHU9D.

Preference weights for the CHU9D were obtained from a sample of the UK adult general population using the recognised valuation technique of standard gamble. Members of the general population were asked to value a selection of health states from which a model was estimated to predict all the health states described by the CHU9D.

A recent study has obtained Australian preference weights for the CHU9D using profile case best worst scaling methods. These are based on the preferences of Australian adolescents aged 11 to 17 years. If you would like to use these preference weights, please indicate this when completing your licence application. Alternatively, you can contact Professor Julie Ratcliffe,julie.ratcliffe@flinders.edu.au who led the work. Julie will also be able to provide you with the algorithms. Please note the descriptive system is only available through the University of Sheffield.

Whilst the measure was originally developed with children aged 7-11 years, since then it has been validated in an adolescent population (11-17 years). Details can be found on the publications page. Some studies are also underway trialling a proxy version with children age 5-7 years and a proxy version with guidance notes for children under 5 years. If you are interested in using it in the under 5 age group, please contact Katherine Stevens to discuss this. If you are interested in using the proxy version for children age 5-7 years, then please select this option on the licence request form.

 Please watch this video for more information