Utilities of Patients with Hypertension in Northern Vietnam

OBJECTIVES: The study aims to inform potential cost-effectiveness analysis of hypertension management in Vietnam by providing utilities and predictors of utilities in patients with hypertension. METHODS: Hypertensive patients up to 80 years old visiting the hospital were invited to participate in a survey using Quality Metric’s Short-form 36v2(TM) translated into Vietnamese. Health-state utilities were estimated by applying a previously published algorithm. RESULTS: The mean utility of the 691 patients interviewed was 0.73. Controlling for age, sex, blood pressure (BP) stage, and history of stroke, the utilities in older patients were lower than those in younger ones, and statistically significantly different between the extremes of youngest and oldest groups (p = 0.03). Utility in males was higher than in females (p = 0.002). As expected, patients with a history of stroke appeared to exhibit lower utilities than patients without such history, but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.73). Patients with more than three comorbidities did have lower utilities than patients without comorbidity (p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Health-state utilities found among hypertensive patients in Vietnam were similar to those found in other international studies. It is suggested that lower of health-state utilities exist among those patients who were older, female or had more than three comorbidities in comparison with respective reference groups. However, further research for confirmation is required. The data from this study provide a potential reference on health-state utilities of hypertensive patients in Vietnam as an input for future cost-effectiveness analysis of interventions. Also, it may serve as a reference for other similar populations, especially in the context of similar environments in low income countries.