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Measuring health-related utility:

Why the disparity between EQ-5D and SF-6D?

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Abstract

There remains considerable disagreement concerning the preferred generic utility-based measure of health-related quality of life for use in constructing quality-adjusted life years. The recent appearance (in a published form) of a new measure, the SF-6D, has highlighted this issue. The SF-6D and EQ-5D have many similarities, but marked variation has been shown in the results generated by the two instruments. The study reported here is an exploration of why such divergent results exist. There are two possible explanations: variation in the descriptive component of the instruments and variation in the values applied to health states. The results suggest two important conclusions. First, the SF-6D can describe severe health states, including states that (according to the EQ-5D scoring algorithm) are viewed as worse than the state of being ‘dead’. Second, much of the large discrepancy between the results generated using the two instruments appears to stem from very different valuations being placed on similar health states.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Paul Kind who discussed an earlier version of this paper at the EuroQol Scientific Meeting. We also thank our colleagues (from Birmingham, Brunel, Aberdeen and York Universities) for their assistance in the mapping survey, and Peter Giakalis for help in identifying relevant literature. Comments from the two referees should also be acknowledged; their suggestions have strengthened the paper. The views expressed are those of the authors alone.

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Author notes

  1. Stirling Bryan

    Present address: Health Economics Facility, Health Services Management Centre, School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, Park House, 40 Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham, B15 2RT, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Economics Facility, School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, UK

    Stirling Bryan

  2. Health Economics Research Group, Brunel University, UK

    Louise Longworth

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  1. Stirling Bryan
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  2. Louise Longworth
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Correspondence to Stirling Bryan.

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Bryan, S., Longworth, L. Measuring health-related utility:. Eur J Health Econ 6, 253–260 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-005-0299-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-005-0299-9

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