Measurement of health-related quality of life in patients with diabetes mellitus using EQ-5D-5L in Hong Kong, China

PURPOSE: This study aimed to estimate the health preference scores of the Chinese population with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) using the EQ-5D-5L Hong Kong (HK) population tariff according to different sociodemographic characteristics in HK. METHODS: Data were obtained from a cross-sectional, territory-wide study of patient experience on specialist outpatient services in a public setting in HK. The EQ-5D-5L HK was used to collect the patients’ health status. A total of 2326 respondents were reported to suffer from DM, and their information was elicited and used for the analysis in this study. A robust ANOVA method was used to compare the differences in EQ-5D-5L index scores among subgroups. Binary logistic regressions were used to predict the probability of respondents reporting full health, and ordinal least square (OLS) model was used to assess the relationship between DM and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). RESULTS: The mean EQ-5D-5L index score for DM patients was 0.84. A total of 229 EQ-5D health states were reported. Altogether, 47.5% of the respondents reported having some problems with pain/discomfort, followed by mobility (26.4%), usual activities (26.0%), and anxiety/depression (23.5%). Logistic regression and OLS models indicated that male and fully employed respondents were less likely to report having problems with any of the five dimensions and index score of EQ-5D than female and non-fully employed respondents. The findings of OLS model also showed that DM patients that experience comorbidity with three and more chronic conditions were more likely to show a lower index score than respondents who reported living with DM alone. CONCLUSION: The EQ-5D index scores varied among DM patient characteristics and were more highly impaired with multimorbidity status. Interventions targeting at-risk subgroups, such as modifying single-diseased guidelines, might be helpful to improve their HRQoL. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11136-020-02462-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.