Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Mar;23(2):443-7.
doi: 10.1007/s11136-013-0498-2. Epub 2013 Aug 7.

The quality of life questionnaire EQ-5D-5L: psychometric properties and normative values for the general German population

Andreas Hinz  1 , Thomas Kohlmann, Yve Stöbel-Richter, Markus Zenger, Elmar Brähler
Affiliations

The quality of life questionnaire EQ-5D-5L: psychometric properties and normative values for the general German population

Andreas Hinz et al. Qual Life Res. 2014 Mar.

Abstract

Purpose: The health state classifier EQ-5D of the EuroQoL group has been expanded to a 5-level instrument (EQ-5D-5L), but studies on psychometric properties of this new instrument, applied to the general population, are rare.

Methods: A sample of 2,469 subjects, representatively selected from the German general population, was asked to fill in the EQ-5D-5L and several other questionnaires. Crude sum scores of the EQ-5D-5L were calculated and compared with scores derived from two sets of utilities, one from a German and one from a UK sample.

Results: The mean sum score (0-100 scale) was 91.5. Males reported better health states than females, and there was a nearly linear age trend. The list of the 45 most frequent health patterns (those with at least 0.2 % of the respondents) showed that almost half of the participants (47.5 %) responded being in the optimal health state, indicating a ceiling effect. Correlations between EQ-5D-5L scores and other questionnaires were very similar for all three scoring systems of the EQ-5D-5L. Finally, normative scores are given on the basis of sum scores.

Conclusions: The applicability of the EQ-5D-5L in the general population is limited because of the skewness. Sum scores are useful because of their simplicity, international generalizability, and construct validity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Arch Intern Med. 2006 May 22;166(10):1092-7 - PubMed
    1. Med Care. 2000 Jan;38(1):115-21 - PubMed
    1. Qual Life Res. 2011 Dec;20(10):1727-36 - PubMed
    1. Value Health. 2012 Jul-Aug;15(5):708-15 - PubMed
    1. Soz Praventivmed. 2005;50(5):292-300 - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources