Title |
A comparison of health utility scores calculated using United Kingdom and Canadian preference weights in persons with alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers
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Published in |
Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, July 2016
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DOI | 10.1186/s12955-016-0510-y |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Mingying Fang, Mark Oremus, Jean-Eric Tarride, Parminder Raina, Canadian Willingness-to-pay Study Group |
Abstract |
The use of the EQ-5D to asses the economic benefits of health technologies has led to questions about the cross-population transferability of preference weights to calculate health utility scores. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the use of UK and Canadian preference weights will lead to the calculation of different health utility scores in a sample of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their primary informal caregivers. We recruited 216 patient-caregiver dyads from nine geriatric and memory clinics across Canada. Participants used the EQ-5D-3L to rate their health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL). EQ-5D-3L responses were transformed into health utility scores using UK and Canadian preference weights. The levels of agreement between the two sets of scores were assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Bland-Altman plots depicted individual-level differences between the two sets of scores. Differences in health utility scores were tested using the Wilcoxon signed rank sum test. A generalized linear model with a gamma distribution was used to examine whether participants' socio-demographic characteristics were associated with their health utility scores. The distributions of health utility scores derived from both the UK and Canadian preference weights were skewed to the left. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.94 (95 % CI: 0.92, 0.95) for persons with AD and 0.92 (95 % CI: 0.88, 0.94) for the caregivers. The Canadian weights yielded slightly higher median health utility scores than the UK weights for caregivers (median difference: 0.009; 95 % confidence interval: 0.007, 0.013). This finding persisted after stratifying by disease severity. Few socio-demographic characteristics were associated with the two sets of health utility scores. Health utility scores exhibited small and clinically unimportant differences when calculated with UK versus Canadian preference weights in persons with AD and their caregivers. The original UK and Canadian population samples used to obtain the preference weights valued health states similarly. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 1 | 25% |
New Zealand | 1 | 25% |
Canada | 1 | 25% |
Unknown | 1 | 25% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 3 | 75% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 25% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Unknown | 78 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Bachelor | 10 | 13% |
Student > Ph. D. Student | 9 | 12% |
Student > Master | 8 | 10% |
Researcher | 7 | 9% |
Student > Postgraduate | 7 | 9% |
Other | 10 | 13% |
Unknown | 27 | 35% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Medicine and Dentistry | 17 | 22% |
Nursing and Health Professions | 16 | 21% |
Economics, Econometrics and Finance | 4 | 5% |
Psychology | 3 | 4% |
Social Sciences | 3 | 4% |
Other | 7 | 9% |
Unknown | 28 | 36% |