EQ-5D-Y-5L

EQ-5D-Y-5L development and intended area of use

The EQ-5D-Y-5L is a generic health-related quality of life measure intended for children and adolescents aged 8 to 15 years. For children aged 4 to 7 years, a proxy version can be used. It was developed from the EQ-5D-Y-3L by extending its levels from three to five in each dimension: mobility, looking after myself, doing usual activities, having pain or discomfort and feeling worried, sad or unhappy. The aim of its development was to further improve the sensitivity of the EQ-5D-Y-3L, allowing for a more precise assessment of health-related quality of life in younger populations. Additionally, its development also aimed to enhance the comparability of data collected from adults and children, acknowledging that the most widely used EuroQol instrument for adults is the five-level EQ-5D-5L. The EQ-5D-Y-5L was developed in a multi-country study in Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK between 2014

and 2018 (Kreimeier et al. 2019). The development process consisted of two phases. The first phase focused on identifying severity labels for use in the different countries, while the second phase involved testing the expanded level structure.

Younger Populations Working Group

The development and validation process of the EQ-5D-Y-5L is overseen by the Younger Populations Working Group.

IP status and use of EQ-5D-Y-5L

In line with the Foundation’s current Intellectual Property (IP) Protection Policy, the EQ-5D-Y-5L has been given Experimental Version status — i.e. it is currently only available to research collaborators, not to users. If you wish to engage in research on the EQ-5D-Y-5L, please contact the EuroQol Office at rd@euroqol.org.

Available languages

The EQ-5D-Y-5L is currently available in approximately 20 different languages, including Amharic, Arabic, Chichewa, Czech, English, German, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Norwegian, Oromo, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Spanish, Swedish and Zulu. All language versions have been produced according to the Version Management Committee’s guidelines and quality procedures. Translation to further languages is currently underway. If you wish to inquire about the availability of a language version, please contact us at rd@euroqol.org.

Available modes of administration

Given the target population of younger individuals who may face challenges in reading the questionnaire or self-reporting their health-related quality of life, self-complete, proxy 1, proxy 2 and interviewer-administered versions have been created for the EQ-5D-Y-5L.

Ongoing research with the EQ-5D-Y-5L

The EQ-5D-Y-5L has been and is currently being tested in multiple EuroQol-funded projects involving various acutely and chronically ill paediatric populations, healthy children as well as in different age groups in over 15 countries. Recent studies have provided psychometric evidence of the validity, reliability and responsiveness of the instrument.

Valuation of the EQ-5D-Y-5L

A protocol to develop preference-weighted value sets for the EQ-5D-Y-5L is currently in development. Additionally, a crosswalk algorithm to calculate EQ-5D-Y-5L value sets from existing EQ-5D-Y-3L value sets is under development.

Any questions?

Please contact us if you have any questions about the EQ-5D-Y-5L.

Key references:

Golicki D, Młyńczak K. Measurement Properties of the EQ-5D-Y: A Systematic Review.
Value Health. 2022 Jun 22:S1098-3015(22)02001-0.

Kreimeier S, Åström M, Burström K, Egmar AC, Gusi N, Herdman M, Kind P, Perez-Sousa MA, Greiner W. EQ-5D-Y-5L: developing a revised EQ-5D-Y with increased response categories.
Qual Life Res. 2019 Jul;28(7):1951-1961.