An Investigation of the Feasibility and Cultural Appropriateness of Stated Preference Methods to Generate EQ-5D-5L Values in the United Arab Emirates

No EQ-5D-5L value sets are currently available in the Middle East to inform decision making in the region’s health care systems. This study tests the feasibility of eliciting EQ-5D-5L values from a general public sample in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) using the EuroQol Group’s standardised valuation protocol.

 

Computer-assisted personal interviews were conducted with 200 adult Emiratis in December 2013. Respondents completed 10 time trade-off tasks and seven discrete choice experiment tasks, followed by debriefing questions about their experience of completing the valuation tasks. The face validity of the data appears to be reasonably high. The majority of respondents stated that their religious beliefs influenced their responses to the valuation tasks.

 

The authors conclude that it is feasible to generate meaningful health state values in the UAE, though some adaptation of the methods may be required to improve their acceptability among Emiratis (and other predominantly Muslim populations).

 

A revised version of this paper has been published in Value in Health Regional Issues and can be downloaded from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212109915000527

 

Please cite as: Papadimitropoulos, M., Elbarazi, I., Blair, I., Katsaiti, M.S., Shah, K. and Devlin, N., 2015. An Investigation of the Feasibility and Cultural Appropriateness of Stated Preference Methods to Generate EQ-5D-5L Values in the United Arab Emirates. Value in Health Regional Issues, 7, pp.34-41.