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Table 4 Pairwise comparisons to questions which examine the importance of social and cognitive dependence within age strata

From: Triage for coronary artery bypass graft surgery in Canada: Do patients agree on who should come first?

Scenario*

Mean difference in the rank score relative to respondent's own position**

SD

signed rank statistic

signed rank p-value***

An 85 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as that of the respondent's, but with mild dementia who lives at home who receives support for groceries/cleaning vs. an 85 year old patient who is otherwise identical to the respondent

0.25

0.91

53.5

0.05

An 85 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as that of the respondent's, but with severe dementia, living in a nursing home with full nursing care vs. an 85 year old patient who is otherwise similar to the respondent but with mild dementia who lives at home who receives support for groceries/cleaning

-0.39

1.11

-116.0

0.007

An 85 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as that of the respondent's, but with severe dementia, living in a nursing home with full nursing care vs. an 85 year old patient who is otherwise identical to the respondent

-0.14

1.21

-44.5

0.42

A 35 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as that of the respondent's, but is married with 4 children, receiving average salary and is the family's sole income-provider vs. a 35 year old is otherwise identical to the respondent

0.74

0.94

195.5

<0.0001

A 35 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as that of the respondent's, but is unmarried, unemployed, on welfare vs. a 35 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as that of the respondent's, but is married with 4 children, receiving average salary and is the family's sole income-provider

-1.12

1.02

-370.5

<0.0001

A 35 year old who has the same clinical indication and severity as those of the respondents, but is unmarried, unemployed, on welfare vs. a 35 year old is otherwise identical to the respondent

-0.39

0.94

-71.0

0.003

  1. *answer scale: 0 = very far behind you, 1 = a little bit behind you, 2 = your place, 3 = a little bit ahead of you, 4 = very far ahead of you
  2. **ranges from -4 to 4; a mean of 0 indicates that the survey respondent ranks the person in the same place as themself; values above zero indicate the survey respondent ranks the person ahead of themself in the queue, values below zero indicate the survey respondent rank the person behind themself in the queue
  3. ***tests whether mean is significantly different from 0. P-values have been corrected for multiple comparisons by Bonferroni adjustment;
  4. statistical significance is p ≤ 0.005
  5. SD = standard deviation
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BMC Health Services Research

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