[Health Status of the German population: results of a representative survey using the EuroQol questionnaire].
OBJECTIVE
The EuroQol questionnaire (EQ-5D) is an instrument for subjectively describing and valuing health states. The purpose of this study was to measure the health status of the German population using the EQ-5D and to analyse the influence of sociodemographic factors.


METHODS
As part of the European Study of the Epidemiology of Mental Disorders (ESEMeD) a representative sample of the non-institutionalised population aged 18 and above in Germany was surveyed by personal computer-based interviews in 2002/2003. Besides questions relating to the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and their risk factors, the health status of 3552 respondents was recorded using the EQ-5D. Frequency and factors of influence on problems in the EuroQol items mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, anxiety/depression as well as the valuation of health state on the visual analog scale (VAS) were analysed.


RESULTS
36 % of the respondents report problems in at least one of the EuroQol items; most frequent were problems in the dimension pain/discomfort (28 %), followed by mobility (17 %), everyday activities (10 %), anxiety/depression (4 %) and self-care (3 %). The mean VAS score was 77.4. Except for anxiety/depression the frequency of problems increased significantly with age and decreased with income. Women reported significantly more problems than men with regard to pain/discomfort and self-care. Having received more than 9 years of school education and being employed was associated with significantly fewer problems in all dimensions of the EuroQol. Living with a partner was associated with significantly fewer problems in the dimensions of self-care, usual activities and anxiety/depression. Multivariate analyses confirmed the effect of age, school education and employment on the frequency of problems, whereas for living with a partner only effects on self-care and anxiety/depression, and for gender only effects on pain/discomfort were confirmed. Income had no effect on frequency of problems in multivariate analyses. Young age, more than 9 years of school education, employment and living with a partner had a significantly positive effect on VAS score in multivariate analyses, while gender and income had no effect.


CONCLUSIONS
The EQ-5D is a simple health state classification system, that can be used to detect variations in the health status of a population. This study provides EQ-5D-norm values for the German population.
König
H H
HH
Gesundheitsökonomie, Universität Leipzig. hans-helmut.koenig@medizin.uni-leipzig.de
Bernert
S
S
Angermeyer
M C
MC
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011788:Quality of Life; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires