Economic valuation of informal care: the contingent valuation method applied to informal caregiving

This paper reports the results of the application of the contingent valuation method (CVM) to determine a monetary value of informal care. We discuss the current practice in valuing informal care and a theoretical model of the costs and benefits related to the provision of informal care. In addition, we developed a survey in which informal caregivers' willingness to accept (WTA) to provide an additional hour of informal care was elicited. This method is better than normally recommended valuation methods able to capture the heterogeneity and dynamics of informal care. Data were obtained from postal surveys. A total of 153 informal caregivers and 149 care recipients with rheumatoid arthritis returned a completed survey. Informal caregivers reported a mean WTA to provide a hypothetical additional hour of informal care of 9.52 Euro (n = 124). Many hypotheses derived from the theoretical model and the literature were supported by the data. CVM is a promising alternative for existing methods like the opportunity cost method and the proxy good method to determine a monetary value of informal care that can be incorporated in the numerator of any economic evaluation. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.