Catalog of EQ-5D-3L Health-Related Quality-of-Life Scores for 199 Chronic Conditions and Health Risks in Denmark
Authors: Hvidberg Michael Falk , Petersen Karin Dam , Davidsen Michael , Witt Udsen Flemming , Frølich Anne , Ehlers Lars , Alava Mónica Hernández 
Published: April 2023

Background. Assessments of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) are essential in estimating quality-adjusted life-years. It is sometimes not feasible to collect primary HRQoL data, and reliable secondary sources are necessary. Current “off-the-shelf” HRQoL catalogs are based on older diagnosis classifications and include a limited number of diseases. This article aims to provide 1) a Danish EQ-5D-3L–based HRQoL catalog for 199 nationally representative chronic conditions based on ICD-10 codes and 2) a complementary model-based catalog controlling for age, sex, comorbidities, lifestyle, and health risks. Design. A total of 55,616 respondents from 3 national health survey samples were pooled and combined with 7 national registers containing patient-level information on diagnoses, health care activity, and sociodemographics. EQ-5D-3L data were converted to utility scores using the Danish EQ-5D-3L value set to estimate the mean utility for each chronic disease population. Adjusted limited dependent variable mixture models were estimated and used to provide a regression-based catalog of utilities/disutilities. Results. Diseases with the lowest mean EQ-5D score in the Danish population were systemic sclerosis (M34; score = 0.432), fibromyalgia (M797; score = 0.490), rheumatism (M790; score = 0.515), dementia (F00, G30; score = 0.546), posttraumatic stress syndrome (F431; score = 0.557), and systemic atrophies (G10-G14; score = 0.583. Based on the estimated models, the largest estimated disutilities were cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, depression, dorsalgia, sclerosis, and fibromyalgia. Lifestyle factors, including perceived stress, loneliness, and body mass index, were also significantly associated with low HRQoL. Conclusions. This study provides a comprehensive nationally representative catalog and a model-based catalog of EQ-5D-3L–based HRQoL scores for Denmark that can be used to describe aspects of disease burden and allocate resources within health care. Additional Stata programs are also provided to facilitate predictions in other populations. Highlights A Danish national representative catalog of health-related quality-of-life scores for 199 chronic conditions is presented, which provides population estimates for chronic conditions subgroups that can be used for health economic evaluation. Two separate regression models of EQ-5D-3L utility scores with different sets of control variables are estimated to allow researchers to adjust for differences in the composition of the subgroups and provide a tool that can be used in other settings. Results indicate that health-related quality of life varies across disease groups but is lowest for renal disease, mental and behavioral disorders, benign neoplasms and diseases of the blood, digestive systems, and nervous systems. Health risks and lifestyle factors such as perceived stress, loneliness, and a large body mass index are highly correlated with health-related quality of life, and, in many cases, the correlation is higher than with individual diseases.