Improving patient-reported outcome measures: Valuation and application of the EQ-5D in Canada

The description system of the EQ-5D consists of 5 health dimensions: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. Each dimension defines 3 levels indicating no impairment, some impairment, and extreme impairment. It has been one of the most widely used utility-based patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and its reliability and validity have been well-established around the world. Currently the EQ-5D is undergoing an important expansion from 3-level to 5-level response options with the aim at improving its ability to detect changes in health status and thus strengthening its application in health care research. The primary objectives of the proposed research are to develop a scoring system for the EQ-5D using best-worst scaling and to determine its minimally important difference (MID) in diseased populations.

This study is sponsored by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and Dr. Feng Xie is the principal investigator of this study.