Is the Health Utilities Index valid in total hip arthroplasty patients?

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to examine the construct validity of the Health Utilities Index Mark 2 (HU12) and Mark 3 (HU13) in patients with osteoarthritis (OA) needing total hip arthroplasty (THA).

BACKGROUND

One hundred and fourteen OA patients (mean age = 69.2; SD = 8.9) who were waiting to see a surgeon for an evaluation for THA completed baseline measures that included the HU12, HU13, SF-36, Harris Hip Scale, WOMAC, MACTAR, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the 6-min walk test.

METHODS

We examined 87 a priori hypotheses by correlating (one-tailed zero-order correlations) the single-attribute utility scores for the pain, emotion, mobility, ambulation, self-care, dexterity, vision, hearing, and speech attributes of the HU12 and HU13 and the overall HU12 and HU13 utility scores to specified subscales of the other measures.

RESULTS

The zero-order correlations confirmed 75% of our a priori hypotheses suggesting that the constructs within the HU12 and HU13 were, in general, related to similar constructs in other measures as expected.

CONCLUSIONS

The evidence suggests that HU12 and HU13 are valid for use in OA and THA studies.