Abstract
Background In order to assess and plan for changing healthcare needs, the lack of available information regarding temporal changes in the health-related quality of life of a population must be addressed.
Aim This paper aims to describe such changes over 5 years in a general population.
Design of study Longitudinal postal questionnaire study.
Setting UK general practice.
Method This was a longitudinal postal questionnaire study in two general practice populations, using the generic instrument EQ-5D to measure health-related quality of life. Individuals were included if they responded to three postal surveys in 1999, 2001, and 2004 and there were three consecutive values of EQ-5Dindex available between 1999 and 2004.
Results A total of 2498 subjects were included in the study. After adjustment for potential confounders (including ageing), health-related quality of life declined significantly over the observation period. The change in EQ-5Dindex was from 0.79 to 0.74 and for EQ-5Dvas 76.8 to 73.3 (P for both trends <0.001).
Conclusion Health-related quality of life deteriorated in these populations over 5 years. In an era of improvements in mortality, this has important implications for the use of health-related quality of life data in healthcare planning and resource allocation.
- Received March 4, 2009.
- Revision received May 5, 2009.
- Accepted July 13, 2009.
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2009.