An exploratory study of long-term publicly waitlisted bariatric surgery patients’ quality of life before and 1 year after bariatric surgery, and considerations for healthcare planners
Objectives: We sought to measure quality-of-life impacts in a study population of severely obese patients who had multiyear waitlist times and then underwent bariatric surgery.
Methods: Participants were recruited opportunistically following a government-funded initiative to provide bariatric surgery to morbidly obese long-term waitlisted patients. Participants self-completed the EQ-5D-5L and AQoL-8D questionnaires pre- and postoperatively. Utility valuations (utilities) and individual/super dimension scores (AQoL- 8D only) were generated.
Results: Participants’ (n = 23) waitlisted time was mean [standard deviation (SD)] 6.5 (2) years, body mass index reduced from 49.3 (9.35) kg/m2 preoperatively to 40.8 (7.01) 1 year postoperatively (p = 0.02). One year utilities revealed clinical improvements (both instruments). AQoL-8D improved significantly from baseline to 1 year, with the change twice that of the EQ-5D-5L [EQ-5D-5L: mean (SD) 0.70 (0.25) to 0.78 (0.25); AQoL-8D: 0.51 (0.24) to 0.67 (0.23), p = 0.04], despite the AQoL-8D’s narrower algorithmic range. EQ-5D-5L utility plateaued from 3 months to 1 year. AQoL-8D 1-year utility improvements were driven by Happiness/ Coping/Self-worth (p <0.05), and the Psychosocial super dimension score almost doubled at 1 year (p <0.05). AQoL-8D revealed a wider dispersion of individual utilities.
Conclusions: Ongoing improvements in psychosocial parameters from 3 months to 1 year post-surgery accounted for improvements in overall utilities measured by the AQoL-8D that were not detected by EQ- 5D-5L. Selection of a sensitive instrument is important to adequately assess changes in quality of life and to accurately reflect changes in quality-adjusted life-years for cost-utility analyses and resource allocation in a public healthcare resource-constrained environment.
Funding
National Health & Medical Research Council
Department of Health and Human Services Tasmania
Department of Premier and Cabinet
History
Publication title
PharmacoEconomics OpenPagination
63-76ISSN
2509-4254Department/School
Menzies Institute for Medical ResearchPublisher
Adis International Ltd.Place of publication
New ZealandRights statement
Copyright 2017 The Author(s). Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Repository Status
- Open