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Health-related quality of life and utility in patients receiving biological and non-biological treatments in rheumatoid arthritis

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Abstract

Biological treatments earn increasing significance in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) but are associated with high incremental cost-effectiveness ratio compared to conventional antirheumatic treatments such as disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs. As the most important objective of medical technologies should be to increase life years and/or patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL), measuring QoL and utility in RA patients treated with biological therapies is crucial. The objective of this study is to compare the utility and QoL of patients treated with biological (n = 85) and non-biological (n = 168) antirheumatic drugs in Hungary in a cross-sectional non-interventional study. A measure of impairment (Disease Activity Score (DAS)-28), QoL measure (EuroQol five Dimension (EQ-5D) Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality of Life (RAQoL)) and utility measures (indirect: EQ-5D index, direct: time trade-off (TTO)) were applied using an interview method. The Pearson correlation was used to assess the strength of the relationship of different measures in the total study group (n = 253). The EQ-5D index (biological treatment: 0.608, non-biological treatment: 0.483; P = 0.012) and DAS-28 (biological treatment: 3.8, non-biological treatment: 4.5; P = 0.003) showed statistically significant difference between the two subcohorts after adjusting data by age, gender and disease duration. Our results indicate that patients on biological treatment have lower disease activity and higher utility; however, it was not statistically significant in all cases. According to our knowledge, TTO was not used previously in Hungarian RA patients. Utility data concerning biological treatments are essential for cost-utility models in health technology assessment reports for public reimbursement.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This study was not funded by a pharmaceutical company/medical device manufacturer or any other profit-making stakeholders.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Semmelweis University, University Pharmacy Department of Pharmacy Administration, Hőgyes Endre u. 7-9, Budapest, 1092, Hungary

    András Inotai, Tamás Ágh & Ágnes Mészáros

  2. Polyclinic of the Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God, Árpád fejedelem útja 7, Budapest, 1023, Hungary

    Bernadette Rojkovich, Angéla Fülöp & Emese Jászay

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  1. András Inotai
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  2. Bernadette Rojkovich
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  3. Angéla Fülöp
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  4. Emese Jászay
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  5. Tamás Ágh
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  6. Ágnes Mészáros
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Correspondence to András Inotai.

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Inotai, A., Rojkovich, B., Fülöp, A. et al. Health-related quality of life and utility in patients receiving biological and non-biological treatments in rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatol Int 32, 963–969 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-010-1721-x

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