Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is important for clinicians, decision-makers, and patients. HRQoL is measured using questionnaires and may be considered disease-specific (asking questions with relation to a specific disease area) or generic (broader questions that might pertain to all disease areas). While it might be hoped that responses to these two types of measures align, this is unsurprisingly not always the case. This study explores the association between responses to the Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire (CRQ) and the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D). The CRQ is commonly used for individuals with obstructive lung disease and asks questions specific to that area. The EQ-5D is a generic measure that is used to capture HRQoL across different disease areas. Importantly, the EQ-5D is often used to assess the benefits of new health technologies (i.e. drugs) when decision-makers are attempting to determine what should be paid for by the health system. Therefore, it is important to understand why generic measures might differ from disease-specific measures, as it is possible that such measures may be missing issues that are clinically important and/or important to patients.