2009 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 73-84
In recent years，the study which used cost utility analysis is increasing. In cost utility analysis，quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) which is calculated by health utility score is used. For measuring the health utility score，there are direct method and an indirect method. Recently，it is often used the multi-attribute healthy status classification systems in an indirect method. However，in Japan，the data accumulation and examination of the validity of the instrument is not enough. This study investigated change of the health utility score for the sub-acute rehabilitation patient，and examined the validity of the Japanese version Health Utilities Index Mark3 (HUI3). A total of 521 patients hospitalized in the sub-acute rehabilitation ward of 5 hospitals，such as cerebrovascular disorder and hip fracture completed the HUI3. Mean utility score was 0.10 at hospitalization，0.33 at leaving hospital respectively，and the improvement difference was 0.22. Moreover，in comparison of single score of HUI3，the ambulation attribute and the cognition attribute became low and were 0.31，0.61 at the hospitalization，and 0.57，0.69 at the leaving hospital respectively. The attribute which showed the improvement regardless of diagnosis at duration of hospitalization were only ambulation and emotion. Moreover，the correlation between health utility score measured by HUI3 and Barthel Index was r= 0.724-0.768 (p< 0.001). These data indicate the health utility score measured by HUI3 had usefulness as an outcome index for rehabilitation. Moreover，about Japanese version HUI3，construct validity was checked and it was suggested that using for future health economics analysis was possible.
