Health Systems and Behavioural Sciences Domain, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, Block MD1, 12 Science Drive 2, Singapore, 117549, Singapore.
Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou, China.
Patient. 2021 Mar;14(2):283-293. doi: 10.1007/s40271-020-00452-5.
This study aimed to understand how respondents from three Asian countries interpret and perceive the EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS).
Data were from a project that aimed to examine the cultural appropriateness of EQ-5D in Asia. Members of the general public from China, Japan, and Singapore were interviewed one-to-one in their preferred languages. Open-ended questions (e.g. What does "best imaginable health" mean to you?) were used to elicit participants' interpretation of the labels of EQ-VAS. How the scale could be improved was also probed. Thematic and content analyses were performed separately for each country before pooling for comparison.
Sixty Chinese, 24 Japanese, and 60 Singaporeans were interviewed. Interpretations of the label "Best Imaginable Health" varied among the participants. Interestingly, some participants indicated that "Best Imaginable Health" is unachievable. Interpretations for "Worst Imaginable Health" also varied, with participants referring primarily to one of three themes, namely, "death," "disease," and "disability." There were different opinions as to what changes in health would correspond to a 5- to 10-point change on the EQ-VAS. While participants opined that EQ-VAS is easy to understand, some criticized it for being too granular and that scale labels are open to interpretation. Findings from the three countries were similar.
It appears that interpretations of the EQ-VAS vary across Asian respondents. Future studies should investigate whether the variations are associated with any respondent characteristics and whether the EQ-VAS could be modified to achieve better respondent acceptance.
本研究旨在了解来自三个亚洲国家的受访者如何解释和感知欧洲五维健康量表视觉类比量表（EQ-VAS）。
数据来自一个旨在检验 EQ-5D 在亚洲文化适宜性的项目。中国、日本和新加坡的普通民众以他们喜欢的语言接受了一对一的访谈。使用开放式问题（例如“对您来说，‘最佳想象健康状况’是什么意思？”）来引出参与者对 EQ-VAS 标签的解释。还探究了如何改进该量表。在汇总进行比较之前，分别对每个国家进行了主题和内容分析。
共访谈了 60 名中国人、24 名日本人以及 60 名新加坡人。参与者对标签“最佳想象健康状况”的解释各不相同。有趣的是，一些参与者表示“最佳想象健康状况”是无法实现的。对“最差想象健康状况”的解释也各不相同，参与者主要提到了三个主题，即“死亡”、“疾病”和“残疾”。对于健康状况的哪些变化对应 EQ-VAS 上 5-10 分的变化，存在不同的看法。虽然参与者认为 EQ-VAS 易于理解，但也有人批评它过于细化，而且量表标签存在解释上的差异。这三个国家的发现相似。
似乎亚洲受访者对 EQ-VAS 的解释存在差异。未来的研究应调查这些差异是否与任何受访者特征有关，以及 EQ-VAS 是否可以进行修改以获得更好的受访者接受度。
