Poor Rhinitis and Asthma Control Is Associated With Decreased Health-Related Quality of Life and Utilities: A MASK-air Study.

BACKGROUND

Allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma may affect health-related quality of life. However, national estimates on the quality of life of patients with AR or asthma are lacking.

OBJECTIVE

To provide estimates for utility scores and EuroQoL five-dimension (EQ-5D) visual analog scale (VAS) for patients with AR or asthma.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study using direct patient data from the MASK-air app on European MASK-air users with self-reported AR or asthma. We used a multi-attribute instrument (EQ-5D) to measure quality of life (as utility scores and EQ-5D VAS values). Mean scores were calculated per country and disease control level using multilevel regression models with poststratification, accounting for age and sex biases.

RESULTS

We assessed data from 7905 MASK-air users reporting a total of up to 82,737 days. For AR, utilities ranged from 0.86 to 0.99 for good control versus 0.72 to 0.85 for poor control; EQ-5D VAS levels ranged from 78.9 to 87.9 for good control versus 55.3 to 64.2 for poor control. For asthma, utilities ranged from 0.84 to 0.97 for good control versus 0.73 to 0.87 for poor control; EQ-5D VAS levels ranged from 68.4 to 81.5 for good control versus 51.4 to 64.2 for poor control. Poor disease control was associated with a mean loss of 0.14 utilities for both AR and asthma. For the same control levels, AR and asthma were associated with similar utilities and EQ-5D VAS levels. However, lower values were observed for asthma plus AR compared with AR alone.

CONCLUSIONS

Poor AR or asthma control are associated with reduced quality of life. The estimates obtained from mobile health data may provide valuable insights for health technology assessment studies.