Developing a preference‐based quality of life for people living with dementia in Vietnam

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundIn Vietnam, dementia‐related quality of life is neither discussed openly nor considered in clinical and implementation trials. Subsequently, dementia care is not designed to achieve valued care that maintains or improves quality of life for Vietnamese living with dementia. In this project, we will develop a preference‐based measure to explore and quantify the quality of life priorities for people living with dementia in Vietnam.MethodWe propose a discrete choice experiment that contains two integral components. First, a series of focus groups will be conducted to explore the quality of life priorities in Vietnamese people who live with dementia. Participants will be asked to consider what quality of life means to them and discuss everyday things and activities that contribute or detract from quality of life, and to rank those activities in importance. Second, a discrete choice experiment will use such information to quantify the tradeoff between quality of life priorities. Participants will be asked to choose between scenarios that contains elements that contribute or take way their quality of life. Participant criteria are people with dementia, their family caregivers and adults aged 55+.ResultThe project will improve the knowledge and measurement of dementia‐related quality of life in Vietnam. The concrete outcomes will include: (1) the list of quality‐of‐life priorities and (2) the relative ranking of those priorities. The latter can be used to summarise quality of life rating into an index to measure quality adjusted life years – a common key outcome that enables comparison of effectiveness and cost‐effectiveness across interventions for people with dementia.ConclusionThe project outcome will enable Vietnamese people who live with dementia, for the first time, to express their quality of life priorities. This will change public awareness and discussion about dementia and appropriate care for people with dementia in the community. This will inform the quality of life data collection for trials and studies conducted in Vietnam. The instrument will enable the calculations of quality adjusted life years and the evaluation of economic values of dementia interventions.