Published Oct 3, 2014

Budapest, Hungary – The Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) is a widely-used generic quality of life (QoL) measurement instrument, but since it is not a preference-based measure, its results cannot be directly used in health economic analyses. Researchers from Hungary developed a mapping function based on the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) which can estimate the utility of different health states in diabetic patients. In the study, “Mapping the Nottingham Health Profile onto the Preference-Based EuroQol-5D Instrument for Patients with Diabetes,” QoL was measured by both the NHP and the EuroQol-5D questionnaire. The mapping function, which was developed by multiple linear regression analysis, used single items of NHP as determinants to estimate the expected value of QoL as measured by EuroQol-5D. The function developed in this study allows researchers to utilise the results of previous and future studies in patients with diabetes which use NHP to measure QoL in health economic modelling. “This research increases the potential impact of studies on quality of life of patients with diabetes. Although the function’s applicability for individual-level prediction is limited, internal validation showed that the expected value of EQ-5D can be predicted with reasonable accuracy based on the results of the NHP in patients with diabetes mellitus.” said Zoltán Vokó, from the Eötvös Loránd University and Syreon Research Institute, both in Budapest, Hungary.