A new tool for creating personal and social EQ-5D-5L value sets, including valuing 'dead'

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Psychometrics
• Health Services Research

Background:

• The EQ-5D-5L is a key instrument for measuring health-related quality of life in cost-utility analyses.
• Existing methods for generating EQ-5D-5L value sets can be resource-intensive.
• There is a need for efficient and accessible tools to create country-specific EQ-5D-5L value sets.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and trial a novel online tool for creating personal and social EQ-5D-5L value sets.
• To assess the feasibility, acceptability, and cost-effectiveness of the new valuation tool.
• To generate a social EQ-5D-5L value set for New Zealand.

Main Methods:

• Development of an online tool incorporating the PAPRIKA method (adaptive discrete choice experiment) and a binary search algorithm.
• Online survey distributed to a representative sample of New Zealand adults (N=5112).
• Rigorous data quality checks to derive a high-quality sub-sample (N=2468) for analysis.

Main Results:

• The online tool successfully generated personal and social EQ-5D-5L value sets for New Zealand.
• The tool demonstrated feasibility and acceptability among participants.
• Valuation data was collected relatively easily and cheaply, indicating cost-effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• The developed online tool is a viable and efficient method for creating EQ-5D-5L value sets.
• The tool has potential for use in other countries and for other health descriptive systems.
• This approach could support personalized medicine and enhance health outcome measurement globally.