Methods to account for follow-up time differences when calculating QALYs from randomised controlled trials (ISPOR 18th Annual European Congress 8-11 November 2015)

Methods for calculating quality-adjusted life years (QALY) are well developed and employed in economic evaluations alongside randomised controlled trials (RTCs)1 2 3 4 5 .

However, patient follow-up does not always occur at the same time and the effect of these time differences in collecting EQ-5D data on QALY calculations has not been tested.

The objective of this study was to assess different methods for estimating the differences in follow-up time when calculating QALYs from EQ-5D data collected alongside RCTs.