Requirements

To run ProSPEQT you will need the following:

1. Internet Explorer version 6.0 or greater.
2. Adobe Acrobat SVG Viewer version 3.0 or greater.
3. A screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 pixels.
4. You must have cookies enabled on your browser.

ProSPEQT can be run over the internet (with some limitations for saving files) or on a local computer. 

New Elicitation

To start a new eliciation, select "New Eliciation" from the File option on the ProSPEQT menu bar. This choice is automatically selected When ProSPEQT first starts. You will be presented with the following choices:

Subject Identifier
Health State	Current Health
Method	Select a MethodSGTTO Feeling Thermometer
Format	Select a FormatArcsFaces
Age
Race	Select a racial groupWhiteBlackOther
Sex	Select sexMaleFemale

Subject identifier is a place for you to insert a unique indetifier for study participants.  The identifier will not be saved on the ProSPEQT webiste if you are using ProSPEQT over the internet.  It will be available as part of the results if you copy the results or save them on  a local machine.

Health State is a box to select from the health states you have loaded or entered.  The default health state is "Current Heath."

Method is either SG (for Standard Gamble) TTO (for Time Trade-Off) or Feeeling Thermometer. The default value is SG.

Format is either "arcs" or "faces" if method is SG.  Selecting arcs represents the gamble as a circle with two arcs, or "pieces of the pie", one representing the risk of dying and the other representing the probability of living.  

Selecting faces represents the gamble as 100 faces, with the probability of dying represented as smiling white faces and the probability of dyinig represented as sad black faces.  Probabilities less than 1% (1 in 100) are represented by arcs. 

Format is not an option if TTO is selected as the preference elcitation method, as only one format for TTO is currently supported.

Age, race, and sex are required for TTO elicitations where the desire is to represent realistic indivdiual-specific life expectancies.  Life expectancies are drawn from United States life exptancy tables.  All fields may be left blank, in which case the default age is 45 and life tables that are not specific to race, sex, or both are used.  These options are not available if another method is selected for the preference elicitations.

Format is also not an option if Feeling Thermometer is selected as the preference elcitation method, as only one format is currently supported.

Top

Elicitations

On the right hand side is a visual aid for the utility elicitation. Two prospects are presented in this strategy; the specific prospects depend on the elicitation task and format selected.

Below, you will find options for participants' responses

Responses

For all other methods, individuals can choose one of five possible responses. ProSPEQT presents three options with the visual utility eliciation. Options are selected by clicking on the red highlighted text. The options are:

• The Sure Thing, representing a certain prospect of current health - "I would choose the sure thing "
• The Gamble or Trade-Off - "I would gamble" or "I would trade off time"
• An indifference option - "The choices are equivalent to me"

Two additional choices are avilable by selecting "Response" from the ProSPEQT menu bar. These are:

• Withdraw last response - "I want to take back my last answer". This option will generate an error if the the intial choice is the one represented.
• Refusal option - "I don't want to answer this question"

1. Indifference: The respondent indicates that the choices are equivalent.
2. Refusal: The respondent doesn't want to answer the question.
3. Granularity: The respondent indicates that the range of their responses is narrower than the minium range set by the interviewer (See Options).
4. Saturation: The respondent has exceeded the maximum number of iterations per elicitation as selected by the interviewer (See Options).

Health State Descriptions

You may edit, rename, add, or delete health state descriptions. Choose "Edit" from the ProSPEQT menu and then "Edit Health State Descriptions". Select the health state you wish to edit from the drop-down list and edit the text accordingly. Hit "Rename" to rename or "Delete" to delete. The delete option will not be available if only one health state remains. Select "Add new state" to add a new healht state description to the list.

If running ProSPEQT on a local machine, you can load and save health state description files through the "File" menu. ProSPEQT does not currently support loading health state description files over the Internet. Note that the files must have an "xml" extension and must follow a specif format. Editing health state description files from within ProSPEQT is safe; editing the files in an external text editor may render your files unusable.

Options

Global Options
Maximum number of iterations
Initial utility value
Random value
Between	And
Seek utility by	Bissection
	Ping-Pong
	Titration
Method	Select a Method SG TTO Feeling Thermometer
Format	Select a Format Arcs Faces
Health Status Descriptor File
Maximum change

Maximum number of iterations

Initial utility value

Random value

Seek utility

1. Bissection. The utility value the respondent is asked to rate is the midpoint of the possible range of values presented, as determined by previous responses.
2. Ping-Pong. The utility value the respondent is asked to rate is is alternates between high and low values of the possible range.
3. Titration. The utility value the respondent is asked to rate is incremented up or down by a fixed amount.

Method

Format

Health Status Descriptor File

Maximum change

SG Options
Initially change by
Then by
Then by

SG Options

TTO Options
Initially change by	Years Months Days
Then by	Years Months Days
Then by	Years Months Days
Default life expectancy
Use life expectancy tables

TTO Options

You can also select either a fixed life expectancy or you can use life expectancy tables that will provide age, race, and gender specific United States life expectancies (this is the default). See New elicitation for details.

To edit these values, select "Edit Life Expectancy Tables" from the ProSPEQT menu bar.

Viewing and Saving Results

To open a separate window of results, select "Export" from the "Results" window and then either "CSV", for comma-separated values format, or "HTML table." The contents of the window can then be cut and pasted into the spreadsheet, database, or text editor of your choice.

If you are running ProSPEQT on a local machine, you can also choose "Append" which will append the results of the current elicitation to an file named "results.xml" in the same directory as the ProSPEQT files. Results are saved in extensible markup language (xml) format.

Exiting

You can exit ProSPEQT by selecting "Exit and Close Window" from the File Command in the ProSPEQT menubar, by clicking on the "x" in the top right corner of the ProSPEQT window, or by the usual ways you close a window.

Upon exiting, ProSPEQT will check if you have unsaved results. If you closed ProSPEQT through one of ProSPEQT\'s menus (always a good idea), and you are running ProSPEQT on a local machine, you will be asked if you want to save the results before you exit.

If you are running ProSPEQT over the internet, or you close ProSPEQT through a normal Windows method (for example, hitting Alt-F4), a new window displaying results will open upon exiting.

To see your version number, choose Help and then About from the ProSPEQT menubar.

Version 1.1

• Added Feeling Thermometer
• Fixed bugs in how TTO utilities were calculated
• Fixed bug in how fixed time-periods were treated in TTO calculations.

Credits

ProSPEQT was developed by Ahmed Bayoumi (ahmed.bayoumi@utoronto.ca). 

Inner City Health Research Unit
St. Michael's Hospital
30 Bond St.,Toronto, ON M5B 1W8

Copyright (c) 2002 Ahmed M. Bayoumi