Hisashige A, Mikasa H, Katayama T
Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Tokushima School of Medicine, Japan.
J Med Invest. 1998 Aug;45(1-4):123-9.
Health-related quality of life plays an important role in assessing the effectiveness of health care. The EuroQol is a generic instrument for describing and valuing health-related quality of life. To elicit health state descriptions and their preferences among the general public in Japan and compare them with cross-national data, a feasibility study for applying the EuroQol to the general public in Japan was carried out.
The subjects were 120 people aged 40s-60s randomly selected in a suburban area at Aichi Prefecture in Japan. In assessing health states and their preferences, the EuroQol valuation instrument (version 12, 1991) translated into Japanese was used. The questionnaires were distributed and collected by public health nurses. The valid responses (rate) were 89 (74%).
The mean scores (raw scores) using the visual analogue scale (VAS) for one's own health was 89.2. No statistically significant difference in VAS scores was observed for both sex and age. The contribution ratio of own health status, sex and age was 0.326 (p < 0.0001). The main independent variables were three dimensions of health status. Valuations for core health states varied from 96.3 (no problem in each health status) to 6.8 (dead). These VAS scores in Japan were correlated with those from other countries (p < 0.001). A multivariate analysis indicated that bias from own health status on preference valuations for core health states was not observed.
The health states and their preferences among the general public in Japan were estimated by using the EuroQol. The results show the feasibility of evaluation for health states quantitatively. Moreover, this study suggested cross-national and cross-cultural applicability of the EuroQol.
健康相关生活质量在评估医疗保健效果中起着重要作用。欧洲五维度健康量表（EuroQol）是一种用于描述和评估健康相关生活质量的通用工具。为了获取日本普通公众的健康状态描述及其偏好，并将其与跨国数据进行比较，开展了一项将EuroQol应用于日本普通公众的可行性研究。
研究对象为在日本爱知县郊区随机选取的120名40多岁至60多岁的人群。在评估健康状态及其偏好时，使用了翻译成日语的EuroQol评估工具（1991年第12版）。问卷由公共卫生护士分发和收集。有效回复（率）为89份（74%）。
使用视觉模拟量表（VAS）对自身健康状况进行评分的平均得分（原始得分）为89.2。在性别和年龄方面，VAS得分均未观察到统计学上的显著差异。自身健康状况、性别和年龄的贡献率为0.326（p<0.0001）。主要自变量为健康状况的三个维度。核心健康状态的估值从96.3（每种健康状况均无问题）到6.8（死亡）不等。日本的这些VAS得分与其他国家的得分相关（p<0.001）。多变量分析表明，未观察到自身健康状况对核心健康状态偏好估值的偏差。
使用EuroQol对日本普通公众的健康状态及其偏好进行了评估。结果表明了对健康状态进行定量评估的可行性。此外，本研究表明EuroQol具有跨国和跨文化的适用性。
