Estimation and comparison of EQ-5D health states' utility weights for pneumococcal and human papillomavirus diseases in Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate and compare EuroQol instrument (EQ-5D) health states' values for pneumococcal and human papillomavirus (HPV) diseases in Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom.
METHODS: Twelve vignettes were designed, pilot-tested, and administered to a convenience sample in a cross-sectional design to elicit descriptive EQ-5D state data. Country-specific EQ-5D time-trade-off-based weights were used to map these descriptive health states into local country preference weights. Descriptive analysis is reported and intercountry differences for each condition were compared using repeated measures analysis of variance.
RESULTS: Seventy-three subjects completed the survey. Pneumococcal disease-related health states mean values ranged from -0.331 (sepsis, Chile) to 0.727 (auditive sequelae, Argentina). HPV-related conditions ranged from 0.152 (cervical cancer, United Kingdom) to 0.848 (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 1, Argentina). Chile had consistently the lowest mean values in pneumococcal states and in one HPV state, whereas those of the United Kingdom were the lowest in most HPV states. Argentina had the highest mean values in both diseases. Differences in country-specific values for each health state were statistically (P < 0.001) significant except for six health states in which differences between Chilean and United Kingdom weights were nonsignificant.
CONCLUSIONS: Utility values for most conditions differed statistically relevantly among analyzed countries, even though the same health states' descriptive set was valued for each. These results reflect the difference in social weights among different countries, which could be attributed to either different population values or valuation study methodologies. They stress the importance of using local preference weights for context-specific decision making.