title: Is there a difference between EQ-5D and SF-6D in the clinical setting? a comparative study on the quality of life measured by AIMS2-SF, EQ-5D and SF-6D scales for osteoarthritis patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The use of both generic and disease-specific instruments in assessing quality of life (QoL) in subjects may pose a barrier in a busy clinical setting with heavy case load. Our current study attempted to evaluate the responsiveness of generic scales, EQ-5D and SF-6D, as compared with a disease-specific instrument, AIM2-SF, in patients with osteoarthritis, to judge which of the two generic instruments would be more suitable to be used alone in the clinical setting.
  
  
  METHODS
  Correlation tests with Pearson correlation coefficient were carried out between EQ-5D and SF-6D scales, and AIMS2-SF scale for both 100 first-diagnosed osteoarthritis patients and 22 patients with two follow-up interviews. Multivariate stepwise regression analysis was further performed on the impact of dimensions that affect the change of QoL.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the evaluation of QoL for 100 patients with osteoarthritis by the EQ-5D scale, anxiety was the dimension with the highest sensitivity; while the SF-6D scale had higher sensitivity on two dimensions of psychological health and role limitations. Therefore, SF-6D would appear more suitable for evaluating QoL of arthritis patients at first presentation. For patients at follow-up interviews, EQ-5D scale maintained the highest sensitivity on anxiety and SF-6D scale only had high sensitivity on the psychological health dimension. As such, the two scales would have equivalent effects for the patients at follow-up interviews. In comparison, all the dimensions of SF-6D showed significant correlation with practically every dimension of AIMS2-SF. Hence, the overall results indicate SF-6D may be more suitable for use in patients with clinical osteoarthritis.
authors.affiliation: School of Business Administration, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Union University Hospital, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, First Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: School of Business Administration, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Yiye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Business Administration, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Shuchuen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010003:Osteoarthritis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: AIMS2-SF; EQ-5D; SF-6D; correlation; osteoarthritis; quality of life