OBJECTIVES: The aim of this systematic literature review was to summarize the measurement properties of generic utility instruments in East and Southeast Asian populations.

METHODS: Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library were searched for original research that met the following criteria: 1) original research articles or brief communication/reports; 2) use of study subjects from China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and/or Vietnam; 3) use of EQ-5D, SF-6D, HUI2, HUI3, QWB, 15D and/or AQoL; and 4) assessment of validity, reliability, sensitivity, and/or measurement equivalence of one or more of the utility instruments in 3). The databsae search was conducted at October 2016.

RESULTS: A total of ixty-four studies were included for the final review. Of which the most commonly assessed instrument was EQ-5D (n = 63), followed by SF-6D (n = 13), HUI3 (n = 3), HUI2 (n = 2) and QWB (n = 1). Construct validity (n = 48) and test-retest reliability (n = 25) were the most widely examined measurement properties in the studies. Generally, the instruments showed validity in 93.7% of studies, reliability in 87.5% of studies, and responsiveness in 76.9% of studies. EQ-5D was shown to have poor agreement with SF-6D (n=4) but good agreement with QWB-SA (n=1). The majority of the studies were from Singapore (34.4%) or China (including Hong Kong) (26.6%). There was none from Indonesia or the Philippines.

CONCLUSIONS: EQ-5D and SF-6D are the most psychometrically validated generic utility instruments in East and Southeast Asia. This review may provide useful guide for users of utility instruments as to which instrument(s) to use in Asian populations.