The development of new research methods for the valuation of EQ-5D-5L

Excerpt

The EQ-5D is arguably now the most well-known and commonly used generic measure of health status internationally. It is available in 169 languages, with applications in clinical, cost-effectiveness and population health studies, as well as (more recently) its routine use by health-care systems. A key feature of the EQ-5D is the availability of ‘value sets’ to weight the EQ-5D health states reported by patients and populations. These value sets provide, for each of the 243 health states described by the EQ-5D, a value (‘utility’) on a scale anchored at 1 (full health) and 0 (dead), reflecting the preferences of the general public, which can be used to estimate quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). These value sets are widely used in the analysis of EQ-5D data and inform a wide range of resource allocation decisions. Value sets for the 3-level version of the EQ-5D (3L) are available in 18 countries and are generally regarded as a credible basis for decision making—for example, the UK value set reported by [1] is recommended by NICE for use in its health technology appraisal process [2]. However, these value sets were largely the result of locally led researcher initiatives. The EuroQol Group never developed or promulgated a formal protocol for the conduct of EQ-5D valuation studies, with the result that value sets studies around the world were undertaken using somewhat inconsistent methods for eliciting, analysing and modelling preferences data. …