Health state utilities in gastroesophageal reflux disease patients with heartburn: a study in Germany and Sweden.

The objectives of this study were to assess health state utilities in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease with heartburn and to analyze if severity and annual frequency of heartburn can predict utilities. A total of 1011 patients in Germany and Sweden participated in telephone interviews, where utilities were assessed using the rating scale (RS), EQ-5D, time trade-off (TTO) and standard gamble (SG) instruments. The average RS, EQ-5D, TTO, and SG utilities were 0.69, 0.70, 0.88, and 0.89, respectively. Linear regression analyses showed that the EQ-5D and RS utilities were negatively and significantly related to the severity and frequency of heartburn. The EQ-5D and RS results indicate that patients with heartburn assign their health states substantial disutility and that it is feasible to estimate regression equations to predict utilities from heartburn-specific variables. In the TTO and SG analyses, the impact of heartburn was in the expected direction but smaller and in general not significant.