INTRODUCTION

No value sets exist for either the EQ-5D-3L or the EQ-5D-5L in Egypt, despite local pharmacoeconomic guidelines recommending the use of the EQ-5D to derive utility. Most published Egyptian economic evaluation studies have used utility values from other published studies and systematic reviews.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to develop an Egyptian EQ-5D-5L value set using the international EuroQol standardized protocol (EQ-VT-2.1). This study is a revision of a previous EQ-5D-5L value set for Egypt retracted by the authors.

METHODS

Adult Egyptian participants were recruited from public places using multi-stratified quota sampling based on age, sex, and geographical distribution. Two elicitation techniques were applied: the composite time trade-off (cTTO) and discrete-choice experiments (DCEs). Before actual data collection, interviewers' performance was assessed in a pilot phase. Data were modelled using generalized least squares, Tobit, heteroskedastic, logit, and hybrid models, and the best fitting model was selected based on logical consistency of the parameters, significance level, prediction accuracy, and model parsimony.

RESULTS

A total of 1378 interviews were conducted, of which 188 were excluded because they were incomplete and did not comply with the protocol, 216 were pilot interviews, and 974 were included in the final analysis. The heteroskedastic model with constraints (model 4) based on the cTTO data was selected as the preferred model to generate the value set. Values ranged from - 0.964 for the worst health state (55555) to 1 for full health (11111) and 0.948 for 11211, with 1123 of all predicted health states (35.94%) being worse than dead. Mobility had the largest impact on health state preference values.

CONCLUSION

This is the first value set for the EQ-5D-5L based on social preferences obtained from a nationally representative sample in Egypt or any Arabic-speaking country. The value set can be used as a scoring system for economic evaluation and to improve the quality of health technology assessment in the Egyptian healthcare system.