The Spanish version of the EuroQol: description and applications

BACKGROUND: TO introduce the EuroQol 5D (EQ-5D) to health care professional s wishing to use it as a measure of health-related quality of life. METHODS: This paper is based on a review of studies using the EQ-5D in Span ish populations which include chronic and critical patients, health care us ers, and random samples of the general population in Navarra and Catalonia, RESULTS: Results are presented for three aspects of the EQ-SD: the descript ive system, the visual analogic scale, and the EQ-5D tariff. Presence of pr oblems on the descriptive system and lower scores on the visual analogue sc ale were positively associated with increasing age, being female, lower edu cational level and social class, presence of chronic conditions, higher lev els of restricted activity, visits to a health care professional in the pre vious 15 days, and hospitalisation during the previous year. The ability of the descriptive system and the visual analogic scale to discriminate betwe en healthy individuals and critical and chronic patients was good. Social t ariffs for EQ-5D health states have been obtained based on self-rated healt h and the rating of hypothetical health states (health states not experienc ed by the rater). Tariffs for hypothetical health states have been obtained using visual analogic scale and time trade-off techniques. Tariffs also di scriminate between healthy and non-healthy subjects, and are a valid reflec tion of preferences for health states. CONCLUSIONS: The Spanish version of the EQ-SD is a simple, valid and practi cal measure for its use as an outcome variable both in clinical research an d in the allocation of health care resources.