Handling and Analysing EQ-5d Data

The EQ-5D is a widely-used standarized instrument for measuring Health Related Quality Of Life (HRQOL), developed by the EuroQol group < https://euroqol.org/>. It assesses five dimensions; mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression, using either a three-level (EQ-5D-3L) or five-level (EQ-5D-5L) scale. Scores from these dimensions are commonly converted into a single utility index using country-specific value sets, which are critical in clinical and economic evaluations of healthcare and in population health surveys. The eq5dsuite package enables users to calculate utility index values for the EQ-5D instruments, including crosswalk utilities using the original crosswalk developed by van Hout et al. (2012) (mapping EQ-5D-5L responses to EQ-5D-3L index values), or the recently developed reverse crosswalk by van Hout et al. (2021) (mapping EQ-5D-3L responses to EQ-5D-5L index values). Users are allowed to add and/or remove user-defined value sets. Additionally, the package provides tools to analyze EQ-5D data according to the recommended guidelines outlined in "Methods for Analyzing and Reporting EQ-5D data" by Devlin et al. (2020) .

eq5dsuite

R implementation of eq5dsuite — a standardised suite of tools for EQ-5D analysis across R, Stata, and Excel. This package provides a comprehensive set of functions for calculating EQ-5D values and analysing EQ-5D data following the recommendations of Devlin et al. (2020).

Features

• EQ-5D value calculation for the EQ-5D-3L, EQ-5D-5L, and EQ-5D-Y-3L instruments
• 39+ published national value sets for the EQ-5D-3L, plus a growing library of EQ-5D-5L and EQ-5D-Y-3L sets
• Three crosswalk methods: original (Van Hout et al., 2012), reverse (Van Hout & Shaw, 2021), and UK-specific NICE-recommended mapping (Hernández Alava et al., 2023)
• Support for user-defined custom value sets
• Automatic value set updates via update_value_sets() — install newly published value sets without waiting for a CRAN update
• 35+ analysis functions for profile analysis, EQ-5D value analysis, and EQ-VAS analysis
• An interactive Shiny application for point-and-click access to the same analytical workflow
• Integration with dplyr and ggplot2 for reproducible, script-based analyses
• Publication-ready outputs in both PDF and HTML formats

Installation

Install the released version from CRAN:

install.packages("eq5dsuite")

Install the development version from GitHub:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("MathsInHealth/eq5dsuite-r")

Quick start

library(eq5dsuite)

# Calculate EQ-5D-3L values using the UK value set
eq5d3l(
  data.frame(mo = 1, sc = 2, ua = 3, pd = 2, ad = 1),
  country   = "UK",
  dim.names = c("mo", "sc", "ua", "pd", "ad")
)

# View available value sets
eqvs_display(version = "3L")

# Check for newly published value sets
update_value_sets()

# Launch the Shiny application
run_app()

Documentation

• Full function reference: ?eq5dsuite
• Vignettes:

browseVignettes("eq5dsuite")

Available vignettes:

• Getting started — installation, value calculation, value set management
• Analysing EQ-5D data — complete workflow using NHS PROMs data
• Crosswalk methods — when and how to use each crosswalk method
• Custom value sets — adding, saving, and managing custom value sets
• Keeping value sets up to date — using the online update system

Value sets repository

Country-specific value sets are maintained at:

eq5dsuite-value-sets

New value sets are added as they are published in the literature. Use update_value_sets() to install them without waiting for a CRAN package update.

Cross-platform suite

eq5dsuite is available across three platforms:

Issues and feedback

For R-specific issues please use the issue tracker in this repository.

For cross-platform concerns please use the umbrella issue tracker.

For general enquiries contact [email protected].

Citation

If you use eq5dsuite in your research, please cite:

Estévez-Carrillo A, Rivero-Arias O, Schlackow I, Rand K. eq5dsuite: An R Package for Describing and Analysing EQ-5D Data. The R Journal (forthcoming).

License

This package is licensed under the GPL (>= 2).