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Quality of life among hazardous and harmful drinkers: EQ-5D over a 1-year follow-up period

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Abstract

Purpose

To investigate the ability of the EQ-5D to discriminate between levels of alcohol risk in a large sample of hazardous and harmful drinkers, and to explore the relationship between transitions between alcohol risk levels and changes in EQ-5D up to 12 months.

Methods

This is a web-based randomised controlled trial evaluating a novel intervention for hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. EQ-5D scores were compared among groups of drinkers at baseline (low/medium/high risk according to self-reported past week alcohol consumption), and changes in EQ-5D scores were estimated as a function of changes in alcohol consumption level.

Results

Baseline EQ-5D scores were dominated by problems with anxiety/depression, which increased with alcohol risk level, whilst high-risk drinkers also experienced more problems with physical HRQoL dimensions. However, the tool demonstrated a considerable ceiling effect. At follow-up, despite considerable reductions in alcohol consumption across the sample, significant changes in aggregated EQ-5D index scores were only observed for high-risk drinkers at baseline who reduced their drinking, with small improvements (0.04–0.06) compared to those who did not reduce.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that the three-option EQ-5D may not be an optimal primary end point for measuring clinical and cost-effectiveness in randomised controlled trials of interventions among hazardous and harmful alcohol users, although further testing of the sensitivity of the tool in these populations is needed.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the National Prevention Research Initiative, which includes the following funding partners: British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Medical Research Council; Research and Development Office for the Northern Ireland Health and Social Services; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Executive Health Department; and the Welsh Assembly Government. IRW was supported by the Medical Research Council (Unit Programme Number U105260558). J.M. was supported by a Wellcome Trust award in Basic Biomedical Science (WT086516MA).

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Essex, H.N., White, I.R., Khadjesari, Z. et al. Quality of life among hazardous and harmful drinkers: EQ-5D over a 1-year follow-up period. Qual Life Res 23, 733–743 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-013-0521-7

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