Mannava Sunny, Borah Rishi Raj, Shamanna B R
School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad, C.R. Rao Road, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, 500046, Telangana, India.
Country Director, Orbis India Country Office, MG Road, Gurugram, 122002, Haryana, India.
Health Econ Rev. 2024 Sep 7;14(1):72. doi: 10.1186/s13561-024-00552-0.
Vision impairment and blindness are significant global public health challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where access to eye care services remains limited. India has significantly reduced the prevalence of Blindness and Vision Impairment (VI) over the last two decades. This was achieved with the help of greater investments towards blindness control programs. The use of utility values helps in conducting economic evaluations of various eye health programs and empirically justify investing in these programs. This study aimed to estimate utility values for various childhood eye conditions in central India using the EuroQol-Five-Dimension-Youth (EQ-5D-Y) instrument.
This is a before and after study with data collected at two time points for few participants and at only one time point for others. This study was undertaken at Shri Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya (SNC) and included children representing central and north India. Participants were randomly sampled in the hospital. After comprehensive eye examination, participants completed the EuroQol-Five-Dimension-Youth (EQ-5D-Y) questionnaire along with EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ VAS) measurement to elicit their health state for their condition which was repeated after six months post-intervention to measure the change in utility value. We have used Indonesian value set to analyze the preference scores of each dimension of EQ-5D-Y.
Utility values of 16 eye conditions were estimated at baseline and seven conditions were followed up for post-intervention utility value estimation. There is a statistically significant improvement in the utility values post-intervention amongst six conditions. Blindness and Pediatric cataract had the greatest change (0.23 and 0.2 respectively) in utility value whereas mild Vision Impairment (VI) showed the least change (0.02) in the utility value post-intervention. Blindness had the lowest baseline (0.62) and post-intervention (0.85) utility value.
The utility values estimated in this study showed that generic measures such as EQ-5D-Y may be used to elicit health states for various eye conditions amongst children. These estimates are helpful in undertaking cost-utility analyses of eye health programs and interventions aimed at these eye conditions.
视力损害和失明是重大的全球公共卫生挑战，在中低收入国家尤为如此，这些国家获得眼保健服务的机会仍然有限。在过去二十年里，印度显著降低了失明和视力损害（VI）的患病率。这是通过对失明控制项目增加投资实现的。使用效用值有助于对各种眼保健项目进行经济评估，并从经验上证明对这些项目进行投资的合理性。本研究旨在使用欧洲五维度青少年健康量表（EQ-5D-Y）工具估计印度中部各种儿童眼部疾病的效用值。
这是一项前后对照研究，部分参与者在两个时间点收集数据，其他参与者仅在一个时间点收集数据。本研究在什里·萨古鲁眼科医院（SNC）进行，纳入了代表印度中部和北部的儿童。参与者在医院进行随机抽样。经过全面的眼科检查后，参与者完成欧洲五维度青少年健康量表（EQ-5D-Y）问卷以及欧洲五维度视觉模拟量表（EQ VAS）测量，以得出他们当前健康状况的效用值，并在干预后六个月重复测量以评估效用值的变化。我们使用印度尼西亚效用值集来分析EQ-5D-Y各维度的偏好得分。
在基线时估计了16种眼部疾病的效用值，其中7种疾病在干预后进行了效用值随访评估。六种疾病在干预后的效用值有统计学上的显著改善。失明和儿童白内障的效用值变化最大（分别为0.23和0.2），而轻度视力损害（VI）在干预后的效用值变化最小（0.02）。失明的基线效用值（0.62）和干预后效用值（0.85）最低。
本研究估计的效用值表明，诸如EQ-5D-Y等通用测量方法可用于得出儿童各种眼部疾病的健康状况。这些估计值有助于对针对这些眼部疾病的眼保健项目和干预措施进行成本效用分析。
