Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a key measure for evaluating health status in populations. Using the recent EQ-5D-5L for measurement, this study analyzed quality of life results and their stability over consecutive population surveys. Three cross-section surveys for representative samples of the general German population from 2012, 2013, and 2014 were evaluated using the EQ-5D-5L descriptive system and valuation by the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Aggregated sample size reached 6074. The dimension with the highest prevalence of problems was pain/discomfort (31.7%). Compared with 2012 (59.3%), the percentage of participants in the best health state increased slightly in 2013 (63.4%) and 2014 (62%). Over the 3-year period, diabetes and heart disease had the strongest negative influence on mean VAS result. The number of reported chronic diseases cumulatively reduced mean VAS. Extreme problems in one or more dimensions were stated by only 0.1%-0.2% of patients. Of the potential 247 health states with a problem score ≥ 20, only six were observed in the aggregated sample. HRQoL results were fairly stable over the 3 years, but the share of the population with no problems was not. Results from the aggregated sample may serve as updated reference values for the general German population.
Keywords: EQ-5D-5L; Germany; cross-section; reference values.