EQ-5D: a measure of health status from the EuroQol Group

Established in 1987, the EuroQol Group initially comprised a network of int ernational, multilingual and multidisciplinary researchers from seven centr es in Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK, Nowadays, the Gr oup comprises researchers from Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, Slovenia, Spain, the LISA and Zimbabwe. The process of shared dev elopment and local experimentation resulted in EQ-5D, a generic measure of health status that provides a simple descriptive profile and a single index value that can be used in the clinical and economic evaluation of health c are and in population health surveys, Currently, EQ-5D is being widely used in different countries by clinical researchers in a variety of clinical ar eas. EQ-5D is also being used by eight out of the first 10 of the top 50 ph armaceutical companies listed in the annual report of Pharma Business (Nove mber/ December 1999), Furthermore, EQ-5D is one of the handful of measures recommended for use in cost-effectiveness analyses by the Washington Panel on Cost Effectiveness in Health and Medicine. EQ-5D has now been translated into most major languages with the EuroQol Group closely monitoring the pr ocess.