A comparison of the quality of life of hearing-impaired people as estimated by three different utility measures Un comparación de la calidad de vida de personas con trastornos auditivos estimada por tres diferentes medidas de utilidad

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the quality of life of hearing-impaired adults, as assessed by three different utility measures - the EuroQol (EQ-5D), the Health Utilities Index Mark III (HUI3), and the SF-6D (derived from the SF-36 questionnaire). Measuring quality of life in terms of utility enables the benefits of many interventions to be compared on a common scale, where 0 corresponds to death and 1 to perfect health. Utility scores for 915 new referrals (mean age 69 years, 55% male) to four UK audiology clinics were estimated. The mean utility scores on the EQ-5D (0.79), SF-6D (0.77), and HUI3 (0.56) were all significantly different from each other The agreement between measures was most commonly moderate according to the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC =0.36 to 0.58). This suggests that different utility measures will provide different estimates of the effectiveness of hearing aid provision.

Age-Dependent Cost-Utility of Pediatric Cochlear Implantation

“…Despite the considerably lower average level of hearing loss in the Barton et al (2005) than in the current study, a conservative assumption was made to linearly model a health-utility increase from the last known HUI3 score of the non-implanted group (0.38 at 46 months of age) to an HUI3 score of 0.56 by 21 years of age, after which the health-utility of the non-implanted control does not continue to grow. This scenario yielded cost-utility ratios of $23,254, $30,892, and $35,012 for the youngest, middle, and oldest groups, respectively.…”

“…In the latter scenario, a new non-implanted baseline was modeled after the HUI3 attainment of a group of hearing-aided adults reported by Barton et al . (2005)(Barton, Bankart, & Davis, 2005). …”

Comparison of health-related quality of life measures for chronic renal failure: quality of well-being scale, short-form-6D, and the kidney disease quality of life instrument

“…The SF-6D index score ranges on a continuum from .296 (most impaired) to 1.0 (full health) and can be translated into QALYs [28]. Although fairly new, the SF-6D has been used in a number of studies with a wide range of patient populations [29][30][31][32]. Studies have demonstrated good test-retest reliability and discriminant validity of the SF-6D [32,33].…”

Health state preference scores for children with permanent childhood hearing loss: a comparative analysis of the QWB and HUI3

“…If different instruments lack agreement, then the choice of instrument can influence estimated cost-effectiveness ratios. A number of studies have examined the agreement between generic instruments for preference-weighting health states involving different conditions [28][29][30][31][32] including hearing loss [33,34]. We are not aware of any studies that have examined agreement between generic instruments in a pediatric population.…”

“…All of the cost-effectiveness evaluations for hearing interventions involving pediatric populations have used the Health Utilities Index to generate preference-weighted health states. A number of studies have questioned whether alternative instruments for developing QALYs provide similar results [28][29][30][31][32] including hearing loss in adults [33,34]. If different instruments produce substantially different values for health states, then the results of cost-effectiveness can be subject to the choice of instrument.…”