Psychometric properties of the five-level EuroQoL-5 dimension and Short Form-6 dimension measures of health-related quality of life in a population of pregnant women with depression
BACKGROUND: Although evidence suggests that the EuroQoL-5 dimension (EQ-5D) and Short Form-6 dimension (SF-6D) have equivalent psychometric properties in people with depression, there is some evidence that the EQ-5D may lack responsiveness in certain populations with depression. AIMS: To examine the psychometric properties of the five-level EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L) and SF-6D measures of health-related quality of life in a representative sample of pregnant women with depression. METHOD: Data were taken from a cohort of pregnant women identified at or soon after the first antenatal care contact and followed-up at 3 months postpartum. Health-related quality of life was measured using both the EQ-5D-5L and the SF-6D at baseline and follow-up. We examined acceptability and conducted psychometric validation in the aspects of concurrent validity, convergent validity, known-group validity and responsiveness in 421 women with available data. RESULTS: The EQ-5D-5L and SF-6D have similarly high levels of acceptability. However, concurrent validation shows a lack of concordance between the EQ-5D-5L and SF-6D. The EQ-5D-5L tends to be higher than the SF-6D in individuals with better health states. The SF-6D tends to be higher than EQ-5D-5L in individuals with poorer health states. Convergent and known-group validity are comparable between the two utility measures. Longitudinally, women who recovered show larger increase in SF-6D utilities than those who did not recover at follow-up. With the EQ-5D-5L, this is not the case. Additionally, the ceiling effects were more apparent in the EQ-5D-5L. CONCLUSIONS: The effectiveness of perinatal mental health interventions may be better captured by the SF-6D than the EQ-5D-5L but this needs to be cross-validated in more studies. DECLARATION OF INTEREST: L.M.H. chaired the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence CG192 guidelines development group on antenatal and postnatal mental health in 2012-2014. L.M.H. reports grants from NIHR, MRC, Nuffield and the Stefanou Foundation, UK. K.T., M.H. and S.B. report funding by NIHR and the Stefanou Foundation, UK
