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Editorial
It’s not the years in your life that matter, it’s the life in your years
  1. Rod Taylor1,
  2. Hasnain Dalal2,3
  1. 1 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit and Robertson Centre for Biostatistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  2. 2 Primary Care, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK
  3. 3 Primary Care, Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust, Truro, UK
  1. Correspondence to Prof Rod Taylor, MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit & Robertson Centre for Biostatistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK; R.Taylor{at}exeter.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2020-317497

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    It’s not the years in your life that matter, it’s the life in your years.

    This (mis)quote neatly captures the importance of quality of life. Indeed, our quality of life has perhaps never been so important than during these unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Although limited, there is some empirical evidence to support the value that people with heart disease attach to their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). An innovative study asked 99 people with advanced heart failure to complete a time trade-off (TTO) tool to quantify their willingness to trade time (length of life) for better health (HRQoL).1 TTO scores can range from 1.0 (no willingness to trade off length of life for health) to 0 (complete willingness to trade off length of life for health). Importantly, the study authors found that patients were prepared to trade off time for health, and interestingly this trade-off was greatest for those with the poorest HRQoL (eg, patients with an New York Heart …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors RT initially drafted and HD edited.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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