Comparison of EQ-5D-5L health state utilities using four country-specific tariffs on a breast cancer patient sample in mainland China

Abstract

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to compare the differences in the five-level EuroQol-5 dimensions (EQ-5D-5L) health state utility scores derived from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and UK tariffs.MethodsSix hundred and twenty-one breast cancer patients were invited for a face-to-face interview in Qingdao Municipal Hospital, China. EQ-5D-5L was scored using tariffs from China, Japan, Korea, and the UK. The null hypothesis of normal distribution of the EQ-5D-5L utility score was tested by the Shapiro–Wilk test. Nonparametric Friedman test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to determine the difference among the four tariffs. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and Bland–Altman plots were used to study the agreement among the four EQ-5D-5L scores. Known-groups validity was studied using a regression framework.ResultsThere were 608 participants in the final analysis, with a mean ± standard deviation (SD) age of 48.0±9.6 years. EQ-5D-5L utility scores were non-normally distributed. The means (median) ± SD of EQ-5D-5L utilities derived from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and UK tariffs were 0.828 (0.879) ±0.184, 0.802 (0.823) ±0.164, 0.831 (0.829) ±0.137, and 0.838 (0.866) ±0.154, respectively. Among pairwise comparisons, the difference of median EQ-5D-5L utility scores was only insignificant between Chinese and UK tariffs. Excellent agreements (with ICCs >0.9) were found among the four tariffs albeit the limits of agreement between each pair of tariffs were wide. Known-groups validity was supported.ConclusionAlthough four country-specific EQ-5D-5L tariffs have shown an overall high level of correlation and agreement, none of them could be regarded as interchangeable. The higher correlation and agreement between Chinese and UK tariffs may be due to the similar functions that were used in the tariff development. In the absence of Chinese-specific tariff, the UK tariff is the second-best option to be applied in the Chinese population. Results of this study further contribute to the explanation of variations among country-specific tariffs.

Health‐related quality of life and health utility score of patients with gastric cancer: A multi‐centre cross‐sectional survey in China

“…It is crucial to adopt the country-specific tariff which can theoretically better reflect population's preferences on health states in conducting CUA (Lamu, Chen, Gamst-Klaussen, & Olsen, 2018;Liu, Li, Wang, & Chen, 2017;Zhao, Li, Liu, Zhang, & Chen, 2017).…”

Health variations among breast-cancer patients from different disease states: Evidence from China

“…Meanwhile, our study further revealed that after controlling for other covariates, there was no difference between patients in the S state and those in the P and R states, while patients in the M state had lower health utilities relative to patients in the other three states. Liu et al [28] conducted studies on breast cancer in China and found that metastatic breast cancer had a lower health utility value than nonmetastatic breast cancer, but they did not report speci c health utility values for different disease states. A South Korean study that used standard gambling to measure the health utility of breast cancer found that the health utility of metastatic cancer patients was lower than that of patients with local recurrence and other states [29] .…”

Assessing the reliability and validity of the ICECAP-A instrument in Chinese Type 2 Diabetes Patients

“…Further studies with other chronic patients and compared to the ICECAP-O instrument are needed to add evidence to the international literature on the validity and use of the ICECAP-A. Third, the ICECAP-A tariff score is based on the UK value set, and studies have shown that the numerical differences in the EQ-5D scores obtained from the conversion tables of different countries are statistically signi cant [30][31][32]. For this reason, it is necessary to develop a Chinese ICECAP-A value set to conduct economic evaluation.…”