Who is using EQ-5D
EQ-5D inclusion in national guidelines
There is now an increasing demand for EQ-5D usage in clinical and economic evaluation of health care as well as in population health surveys. Furthermore, EQ-5D is one of a handful of measures recommended for use in cost-effectiveness analyses by the Washington Panel on Cost Effectiveness in Health & Medicine. In the UK, The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has issued revised guidance that argues for the use of measures like EQ-5D that have been weighted according to the social preferences of the UK population. Also a NHS Task Group (UK) has been set up to co-ordinate the testing of EQ-5D as an outcome measure for use by clinicians and managers. The EuroQol Group advises anyone thinking of using EQ-5D to contact one of the members of the Group (preferably in the country where the research is being conducted) if specific details about the application of EQ-5D are required. The EuroQol Executive Office can be contacted to act as an intermediary if necessary.
Which researchers are using EQ-5D?
Multi-national users: At an international level, the pharmaceutical industry and scientific groups are the foremost users of the instrument. EQ-5D is being applied in multinational trials by pharmaceutical companies. Since EQ-5D is available in many languages in a standardised format, it can potentially be used to translate differences in outcome across borders.
National users: At a national level, the institutions involved are country-specific and the use of EQ-5D in the demand and supply areas of health care is widespread. The following list gives some idea of those involved:
- General Practitioners
- Hospital Specialists
- Nurses and Remedial Therapists
- Researchers into clinical practice
- Those responsible for audit and quality assurance
- Public Health Specialists
- Health service Researchers
- Managers in Health Care Institutions
For which purpose?
Below are some of the more specific ways in which EQ-5D is being used:
- Monitoring the health status of patient groups at different moments in time, e.g. referral, admission, discharge, follow-up of outpatients.
- Evaluation and audit of health care, by measuring changes in health status in individual patients and in groups of patients.
- Assessing the seriousness of conditions at different moments in time.
- Providing relevant information for resource allocation at a variety of levels.
- Assisting in providing evidence about medical effectiveness in processes where drugs or procedures have to be approved.
- Establishing levels of population health status both locally and nationally. Examples include health surveys carried out in Canada, Finland, Spain (1994 Catalan health survey interview) and the UK (UK Department of Health Omnibus Sample Survey 1996, Health Survey for England). and the US (current Medical Expenditure Panel Survey by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality).
In which countries is EQ-5D being used?
In what type of study is EQ-5D used?
