EuroQol: health-related quality of life measurement. Results of the Swedish questionnaire exercise.

The EuroQol Group, which currently comprises 7 centres in 5 countries, has been testing the feasibility of jointly developing a standardised non-disease-specific instrument for describing and valuing health-related quality of life. The instrument employs a visual analogue scale of the 'thermometer' type to allow respondents to rank a number of health states. As part of the Swedish IHE's contribution to the EuroQol Group's work, questionnaires were sent to 1000 people randomly selected to provide a representative sample of the Swedish population aged 16-84 years. 349 persons responded and 208 provided sufficient information for detailed analysis. From these 208 it proved possible to derive health status information in a quantitative form. The most interesting result was that the health state valuations from this survey indicated a striking similarity with those of EuroQol studies in Frome (England) and Bergen op Zoom (The Netherlands). The lessons learned from undertaking the survey are briefly discussed. The Swedish IHE is encouraged by the exercise to continue to play its part in the continuing developments of the EuroQol methodology.