Mapping Sri Lankan EQ-5D-3L to EQ-5D-5L value sets

Objectives Quality-adjusted life-years are the common outcome measure in contemporary economic evaluations in health care. Due to the limitations of the sensitivity of the EQ-5D-3L in specific disease conditions, the EuroQoL group has developed a new EQ-5D-5L classification system with 3,125 health states. This study estimated the Sri Lankan value set for the EQ-5D-5L using a crosswalk methodology. Methods The EuroQoL group had developed a crosswalk methods to obtain interim value set for the EQ-5D-5L health states using available EQ-5D-3L values. This was achieved by mapping EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L ratings through cross tabulations by each dimension level. Using above official EuroQoL crosswalk probabilities, an interim value set for the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L health states were generated based upon the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-3L value set (which was estimated using time trade-off method: n= 780). Comparison were conducted between the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L values and other countries. Results The Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L recorded utility value of -0.73 for the worst health state and 0.85 for a best possible utility for a health state other than the full health. The UK (mean= 0.4) and Japanese (mean = 0.45) EQ-5D-5L mean utility values were higher than the Sri Lankan values (mean = 0.07). However, Thailand median values (0.21) were closer to the Sri Lankan median values (0.14) than the UK (0.41) or Japan (0.45). Conclusions This study produced the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L interim value set using crosswalk methods. Currently, this is the only EQ-5D-5L value set available for the South Asian region.