The role of reluctance to give up life in the measurement of the values of health states.

Questions that involve willingness to risk or give up life often are used to measure the values of health states. In the Boston Health Study, interviews with 291 patients who had AIDS included questions about health status and current desire for resuscitation, and a series of hypothetical questions about desire for life-extending efforts if the patients found themselves in undesirable states, such as being chronically nauseous or blind. An index, "reluctance to give up life" was made from five such questions. The desire for resuscitation was related to current health status, but the general reluctance to give up life was not. Desire to be resuscitated was significantly related to current health status only when "reluctance to give up life" was "low." For people reluctant to say they will give up any life at all, questions that involve risking or trading life seem likely to be poor measures of the values of health states.