Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot. If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch.
Valuing health-related quality of life: an EQ-5D-5L value set for England. Health Economics [PubMed] Published 22nd August 2017
With much anticipation, the new EQ-5D-5L value set was officially published. For over 18 months we’ve had access to values via the OHE’s discussion paper but the formal peer-reviewed paper has (I imagine) been in publication purgatory. This paper presents the results of the value-set for the new (ish) EQ-5D-5L measure. The study used the internationally agreed hybrid model combining TTO and DCE data to generate the values for the 3125 health states. It’s worth noting that the official values are marginally different to those in the discussion paper, although in practice this is likely to have little impact on results. Important results of the new value set include fewer health states worse than death (5.1% vs over 33%), and a higher minimum value (-0.285 vs -0.594). I’d always been a bit suspect of the values for worse than death states for the 3L measure, so this if anything is encouraging. This does, however, have important implications, primarily for interventions seeking to improve those in the worst health, where potential gains may be reduced. Many of us are actively using the EQ-5D-5L within trials and have been eagerly awaiting this value set. Perhaps naively, I always anticipated that with more levels and an improved algorithm it would naturally supersede the 3L and the outdated 3L value set upon publication. Unfortunately, to mark the release of the new value set, NICE released a ‘position statement’ [PDF] regarding the choice of measure and value sets for the NICE reference case. NICE specifies that i) the 5L value set is not recommended for use, ii) the EQ-5D-3L with the original UK TTO value set is recommended and if both measures are included then the 3L should be preferred, iii) if the 5L measure is included, then scores should be mapped to the EQ-5D-3L using the van Hout et al algorithm, iv) NICE supports the use of the EQ-5D-5L generally to collect data on quality of life, and v) NICE will review this decision in August 2018 in light of future evidence. So, unfortunately, for the next year at least, we will be either sticking to the original 3L measure or mapping from the 5L. I suspect NICE is buying some time as transitioning to the 5L is going to raise lots of interesting issues e.g. if a measure is cost-effective according to the 3L, but not the 5L, or vice-versa, and comparability of 5L results to old 3L results. Interesting times lie ahead. As a final note, it’s worth reading the OHE blog post outlining the position statement and OHE’s plans to satisfy NICE.
Long-term QALY-weights among spouses of dependent and independent midlife stroke survivors. Quality of Life Research [PubMed] Published 29th June 2017
For many years, spillover impacts were largely being ignored within economic evaluation. There is increased interest in capturing wider impacts, indeed, the NICE reference case recommends including carer impacts where relevant, whilst the US Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine now advocates the inclusion of other affected parties. This study sought to examine whether the dependency of midlife stroke survivors impacted on their spouses’ HRQL as measured using the SF-6D. An OLS approach was used whilst controlling for covariates (age, sex and education, amongst others). Spouses of dependent stroke survivors had a lower utility (0.69) than those whose spouses were independent (0.77). This has interesting implications for economic evaluation. For example, if a treatment were to prevent dependence, then there could potentially be large QALY gains to spouses. Spillover impacts are clearly important. If we are to broaden the evaluative scope as suggested by NICE and the US Panel to include spillover impacts, then work is vital in terms of identifying relevant contexts, measuring spillover impacts, and understanding the implications of spillover impacts within economic evaluation. This remains an important area for future research.
Conducting a discrete choice experiment study following recommendations for good research practices: an application for eliciting patient preferences for diabetes treatments. Value in Health Published 7th August 2017
To finish this week’s round-up I thought it’d be helpful to signpost this article on conducting DCEs, which I feel may be helpful for researchers embarking on their first DCE. The article hasn’t done anything particularly radical or made ground-breaking discoveries. What it does however do is give you a practical guide to walk you through each step of the DCE process following the ISPOR guidelines/checklist. Furthermore, it expands upon the ISPOR checklist to provide researchers with a further resource to consider when conducting DCEs. The case study used relates to measuring patient preferences for type 2 diabetes mellitus medications. For every item on the ISPOR checklist, it explains how they made the choices that they did, and what influenced them. The paper goes through the entire process from identifying the research question all the way through to presenting results and discussion (for those interested in diabetes – it turns out people have a preference for immediate consequences and have a high discount rate for future benefits). For people who are keen to conduct a DCE and find a worked example easier to follow, this paper alongside the ISPOR guidelines is definitely one to add to your reference manager.
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