Manual Health and Labour Questionnaire

When the indirect costs form a part of an economical evaluation, a standardised method for measuring production losses, as a result of illness, is required. Standardisation will increase the comparability and transparency of the results. The Health and Labour Questionnaire (HLQ) is designed to collect quantitative data on the relation between illness and treatment and work performance. The HLQ data permits the estimation of production losses (costs) of paid and unpaid labour. It contains also an indicator for impediments for paid and unpaid labour, one of the indicators for quality of life. The HLQ is divided into 4 modules to collect data about absence from work, reduced productivity at paid work, unpaid labour production and impediments to paid and unpaid labour. The modular structure permits the omission of questions that are not applicable to the study population. The questionnaire is suitable for self-assessment. This manual is a user guide for the HLQ. The scoring- and valuing methods are presented. Furthermore a survey of norm-scores for several groups of respondents is given. The manual contains also information with regard to feasibility and validity of the HLQ. Finally, the procedural aspects for using the questionnaire are given. Currently we are working on a short form version of the HLQ.