Determining the Severity of Benign Urologic Health States in Men Using Utilities Measures

To assess a population-level perceived health status of common reconstructive urologic conditions using health utilities.

Health utilities are generic quality-of-life measures that can help describe overall health status and can quantitatively compare different disease states and the perceived benefits of various interventions. An a priori determined, representative sample of adult men were recruited by Qualtrics to review standardized scenarios describing typical patients with reconstructive urologic conditions, surgeries to treat conditions, and control conditions (eg, blindness, osteoarthritis). Condition-specific health status was measured using four tools: visual analog scale, standard gamble, time-trade off and willingness-to-pay and reported in Quality-adjusted Life Years (QALY; range 0.0 (death) to 1.0 (perfect health)).

We analyzed 562 completed surveys from condition-naive participants. Condition-specific health status ranged from a mean of 0.52 QALY to 0.66 QALY, with all reconstructive conditions perceived to be worse than osteoarthritis and monocular blindness (QALY 0.68). Health status was lowest for adult-acquired buried penis (0.52 QALY) and pelvic radiation disease (0.53 QALY), comparable to binocular blindness (QALY 0.52). Treatment of erectile dysfunction with inflatable penile prosthesis (∆QALY +0.02; P <.001) and stress urinary incontinence with artificial urinary sphincter (∆QALY +0.04; P <.001) offered only nominal perceived gain in health status.

Health utilities may improve the ability to discriminate between heterogeneous reconstructive urologic disease states. For nononcologic disease states in which mortality is not measured, health utilities could improve the ability to measure societal impact and justification for clinical and research investment.