# Health-state utility values and their time to deterioration in informal caregivers of older patients with chronic diseases

## TL;DR

This study tracked the health of caregivers for older patients with chronic diseases over two years to see how their well-being changed over time.

## Contribution

The study provides a detailed catalog of health-state utility values for caregivers at different time points, useful for economic evaluations.

## Key findings

- Health-state utility values remained stable over time with a median score of 0.80 at 24 months.
- 62% of caregivers experienced deterioration in health-state utility values within a median time of 9.1 months.
- Social worker support did not significantly affect the time to deterioration in caregivers' health-state utility values.

## Abstract

This study aimed to assess health state utility values (HSUVs) in caregivers of older patients with chronic diseases receiving or not receiving social worker support.

This multicentric open-label randomized study assigned caregivers to receive either an informational booklet alone or one accompanied by social worker support. Caregivers completed EQ-5D-3L each semester for 24 months. We reported caregiver HSUVs at baseline and after 6, 12, 18, and 24 months using EQ-5D-3L utility index scores and exploring their time to deterioration (TTD).

Among 179 included caregivers, the percentage reporting some or extreme problems on five EQ-5D-3L dimensions remained almost stable over time with a median EQ-5D-3L utility index score of 0.89 [0.80–1.00] at baseline (n = 177), 0.80 [0.80–0.89] at M6 (n = 125), and 0.80 [0.73–0.91] at M24 (n = 81). Among the respondents, 62% (n = 109) experienced a deterioration in EQ-5D-3L utility index score, with a median TTD of 9.1 months [95%CI 6.2–14.9] in the control group (CG) and 9.5 months [6.3–14.4] in the supportive intervention group (SIG) (HR = 1.06 [0.73–1.54]), p-value = 0.76.

Our study provides a catalog of HSUVs across different caregiver profiles and at various follow-up time points, which can inform future economic evaluations.

ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02626377.