Cross-sectional survey reveals high baseline health-related quality of life norms among South Australian adults, suggesting useful benchmark data for health economic evaluations.
Key Points
To estimate health-related quality of life normative values for the EQ-5D-5L preference-based measure in a representative Australian community sample.
Face-to-face, interviewer-administered cross-sectional survey conducted in the 2013 South Australian Health Omnibus Survey (N=2,908 adults; 63.4% participation rate).
Participants completed the five-dimension EQ-5D-5L and the EQ visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS), with utility scores derived using the UK general population-based algorithm and predictors evaluated via multivariate regression.
Mean utility score was 0.91 (95% CI 0.90, 0.91) and mean EQ-VAS score was 78.55 (95% CI 77.95, 79.15), with 42.8% of respondents reporting no problems across all dimensions and 7.2% rating health >90 on the EQ-VAS.
Younger age, male gender, longer education, higher household income, employment, and marriage or de facto relationships independently predicted higher EQ-VAS scores (p < 0.01), whereas only age and employment status predicted higher utility scores.