Is the Health Utilities Index valid in total hip arthroplasty patients?
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the study was to examine the construct validity of the Health Utilities Index Mark 2 (HU12) and Mark 3 (HU13) in patients with osteoarthritis (OA) needing total hip arthroplasty (THA).


BACKGROUND
One hundred and fourteen OA patients (mean age = 69.2; SD = 8.9) who were waiting to see a surgeon for an evaluation for THA completed baseline measures that included the HU12, HU13, SF-36, Harris Hip Scale, WOMAC, MACTAR, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the 6-min walk test.


METHODS
We examined 87 a priori hypotheses by correlating (one-tailed zero-order correlations) the single-attribute utility scores for the pain, emotion, mobility, ambulation, self-care, dexterity, vision, hearing, and speech attributes of the HU12 and HU13 and the overall HU12 and HU13 utility scores to specified subscales of the other measures.


RESULTS
The zero-order correlations confirmed 75% of our a priori hypotheses suggesting that the constructs within the HU12 and HU13 were, in general, related to similar constructs in other measures as expected.


CONCLUSIONS
The evidence suggests that HU12 and HU13 are valid for use in OA and THA studies.
Blanchard
Chris
C
American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Feeny
David
D
Mahon
Jeffrey L
JL
Bourne
Robert
R
Rorabeck
Cecil
C
Stitt
Larry
L
Webster-Bogaert
Susan
S
D000368:Aged; D019644:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip / Q000523:psychology; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009864:Ontario; D015207:Osteoarthritis, Hip / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology / Q000601:surgery*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D011788:Quality of Life; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology