EQ-5D-Y Value Set for Germany

Abstract

Background

Demand is increasing for youth-specific preference-based health-related quality-of-life measures for inclusion in evaluations of healthcare interventions for children and adolescents. The EQ-5D-Youth (EQ-5D-Y) has the potential to become such a preference-based measure.

Objective

This study applied the recently published EQ-5D-Y valuation protocol to develop a German EQ-5D-Y value set and explored the differences between values given to youth health by parents and non-parents.

Methods

To elicit EQ-5D-Y health state preferences, a representative sample of 1030 adults of the general population completed a discrete choice experiment (DCE) online survey, and 215 adults participated in face-to-face interviews applying composite time trade-off (cTTO). Respondents were asked to consider a 10-year-old child living in the health states. DCE data were modelled using a mixed logit model. To derive the value set, DCE latent scale values were anchored onto adjusted mean cTTO values using a linear mapping approach.

Results

Adult respondents considered pain/discomfort and feeling worried/sad/unhappy as the two most important dimensions in terms of youth health. Adjusted mean cTTO values ranged from − 0.350 for health state 33333 to 0.970 for health state 21111. The EQ-5D-Y value set showed a logical order for all parameter estimates, and predicted values ranged from − 0.283 to 1. Differences in preferences by parental status were mainly observed for cTTO results, where mean values were larger for parents than for non-parents.

Conclusions

Applying the valuation protocol, a German EQ-5D-Y value set with internally consistent coefficients was developed. This enables the instrument to be used in economic evaluations of paediatric healthcare interventions.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40273-022-01143-9.