The Children and Young People Quality of Life Study: a protocol for the qualitative development of attributes for capability wellbeing measures for use in health economic evaluation with children and young people [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations, 1 not approved]

Background: Health services face difficult choices regarding how to allocate scarce health and social care resources. Economic evaluation can aid this process of decision making by allowing competing healthcare interventions or services to be compared in terms of their costs and consequences. However, existing use of economic evaluation of health services largely focuses on comparing interventions in terms of their impact on health only, missing factors potentially important to broader wellbeing. The capability approach measures outcomes in terms of what people are able to do and be. It provides an alternative evaluative space for economic evaluation, which may be especially beneficial for populations such as children and young people, for whom health might not be the only outcome of importance to their wellbeing.

Study aims: This study aims to develop conceptual attributes and descriptive systems for capability wellbeing measures for children and young people to be used in economic evaluation, using qualitative methods with children and young people directly and their parents/guardians.

Methods: Qualitative interviews will be used with children and young people and parents/guardians to develop the conceptual attributes (items) and wording for the capability wellbeing measures. Recruitment will be undertaken through organisations such as schools and charities and online using Facebook. Interviews will be face-to-face or online and will focus on identifying factors important to children and young people’s wellbeing to create an initial draft of the capability wellbeing measures. Subsequent interviews will focus on refining the wording used in the measures. Interviews will be analysed using methods of constant comparison, to explore similarities and differences in what participants considered important to children and young people’s wellbeing and to develop appropriate wording for the measures based on participant responses.

Ethics: The study received approval from the University of Bristol Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee (reference 77121).