The psychometric performance of the Quality-of-Life Utility-Core 10 Dimensions (QLU-C10D), a recently developed disease-specific preference-based measure (PBM) for cancer patients, is not well understood yet. This study aimed to compare the construct validity, sensitivity, and responsiveness of QLU-C10D with that of EQ-5D-5L, a generic PBM. We recruited cancer patients from outpatient clinics of a tertiary cancer hospital then interviewed them face-to-face at two consecutive clinic visits using both QLU-C10D and EQ-5D-5L questionnaires. Construct validity was assessed through known-group comparisons and correlation analysis, agreement of utility scores was examined using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and sensitivity and responsiveness compared using effect sizes (ES) derived from known-group comparisons and standardized response means (SRM) derived from within-group comparisons, respectively. We surveyed 626 patients, 280 of whom also completed the follow-up survey. Mean baseline QLU-C10D and EQ-5D-5L utility scores were 0.799 (SD: 0.224) and 0.916 (SD: 0.156), respectively. Both utility scores demonstrated known-groups and convergent/discriminant validity and their agreement was moderate (ICC: 0.60). EQ-5D-5L's ES was slightly higher than QLU-C10D's ES for cancer stage, while QLU-C10D's ES was higher for Eastern Cancer Oncology Group (ECOG). The SRM of QLU-C10D was considerably higher than that of EQ-5D-5L for deteriorated patients (-0.43 vs. -0.02), while their SRMs were similar for the improved patients. While QLU-C10D and EQ-5D-5L utility scores are both valid in cancer patients, they may not be used interchangeably and the QLU-C10D scores appear to be more responsive to deterioration in health status than the EQ-5D-5Lscores.
Wang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.