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Health State Utilities and Disease Duration in Systemic Sclerosis: Is There an Association?
Adam J N Raymakers1, Nicole W Tsao1, Carlo A Marra1
1From the Collaboration for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia; School of Pharmacy, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Division of Rheumatology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, California, USA.A.J. Raymakers, MSc, CORE, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia; N.W. Tsao, MSc, CORE, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia; C.A. Marra, PhD, School of Pharmacy, Memorial University of Newfoundland; P.J. Clements, MD, Division of Rheumatology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA; D. Khanna, MD, MSc, University of Michigan.
Objective:
Health state utility values (HSUV) are used as weightings to calculate quality-adjusted life years in economic evaluations. Evidence suggests that patients' perceptions of a new diagnosis for a chronic disease, while initially poor, may improve over time. The objective of this study was to examine the association between disease duration and direct HSUV scores in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).
Methods:
Our study included patients with SSc from a US SSc center. An interviewer administered direct HSUV techniques including the visual analog scale (VAS), time tradeoff (TTO), and standard gamble (SG). We calculated the Short Form 6D HSUV from the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36. Additional clinical and demographic variables were collected.
Results:
The mean age of the SSc sample (n = 223) was 51 years (SD 16) with the majority being women (84%). Median disease duration was 5 years (interquartile range 1.5-9). Mean (SD) HSUV scores were 0.67 (0.19) for the VAS, 0.76 (0.28) for the TTO, 0.84 (0.22) for the SG, and 0.65 (0.13) for the SF-6D. In patients with early disease (defined as ≤ 2 yrs, n = 78), the mean HSUV values were 0.64 (VAS), 0.70 (TTO), 0.80 (SG), and 0.63 (SF-6D) versus for those with a longer disease duration: 0.69, 0.79, 0.87, and 0.67, respectively. In multivariate analysis, the SG measure showed a significant and positive association with disease duration measured as a continuous variable and using a threshold of 2 years (p = 0.047 and p = 0.023, respectively).
Conclusion:
Greater disease duration showed a positive association with a direct measure (SG) of utility elicitation after a period of 2 years.
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