OBJECTIVES: Ageing population will result in an increased social burden of chronic diseases. Therefore we evaluate the impact of three chronic diseases (Diabetes Mellitus;DM, Hypertension;HT, Rheumatoid Arthritis;RA) on quality of life (QoL) in Hungary with EuroQoL-5D-3L (EQ-5D) EuroQoL-Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS) and Time Trade Off (TTO). TTO is useful in health planning, economic evaluation as it is a utility measure when health state is based on the willingness to trade off lifetime METHODS: 468 patients were interviewed with EQ-5D, EQ-VAS and TTO. 253 patients with RA, 110 patients with DM and 105 patients with hypertension filled out the questionnaires. In TTO patients need to choose between two alternatives: living with the actual health state for ten years or living with perfect health state for Y years. We used the ping-pong method to find the minimum Z period of time which is offered in exchange for perfect health. RESULTS: The EQ-5D mean scores were according to our expectations: RA had lowest (0,525;SD:0,32); DM had 0,73;SD:0,26 and HT had highest (0,769;SD:0,26). In contrast TTO was lowest in DM (0,74;SD:0,24); RA was 0,769;SD:0,21 and HT was 0,815;SD:0,21. TTO results are higher than EQ-5D index scores in all disorders. Moderate correlation (0.2