Measuring Benefits of Opioid Misuse Treatment: HRQOL of Opioid-Dependent Individuals and Spouses
2016
This study sought to understand how the general public views the quality of life effects of opioid misuse and opioid use disorder on an individual and his/her spouse, measured in terms used in economic evaluations. The study design was a cross-sectional internet survey of a US population-representative respondent panel conducted December 2013-January 2014, with a total of 2054 randomly selected adults, of whom 51.1% were male.
The mean individual utility ranged from 0.574 for active injection opioid misuse to 0.766 for stabilized buprenorphine therapy, with other states in between. Female respondents assigned higher utility to the active prescription misuse and buprenorphine therapy at initiation states than did males; all other states did not differ by respondent gender. Mean spousal utilities were significantly lower than 1.0 but mostly higher than individual utility, and were similar between male and female respondents.
In the opinion of the US public, injection opioid misuse results in worse health-related quality of life than prescription misuse, and methadone therapy results in worse health-related quality of life than buprenorphine therapy. Spouses are negatively affected by their partner's opioid misuse and early treatment.
Measuring Benefits of Opioid Misuse Treatment: HRQOL of Opioid-Dependent Individuals and Spouses
Source:
Wittenberg E, Bray JW, Aden B et al. Measuring Benefits of Opioid Misuse Treatment for Economic Evaluation: Health-Related Quality of Life of Opioid-Dependent Individuals and Their Spouses as Assessed by a Sample of the US Population. Addiction 2016; 111 (4): 675-684. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13219
Not open access.