Presented by: Ephrem Olweny MD
Rush University Medical Center

Introduction

Health utilities define the strength of individuals’ preferences for specific health states, recorded on a scale ranging from 0 (representing death) and 1 (representing perfect health.). Data on health utilities in patients with ureteral stents are sparse. We assessed health utilities in stented patients and evaluated their statistical association with USSQ scores.

Materials

Adult (≥ 18 years) kidney stone patients undergoing ureteroscopic lithotripsy with planned stent insertion at a single academic institution were recruited. Each participant completed 4 surveys during the study period: demographics and SF-36 v2 surveys preoperatively, and SF-36 v2 and USSQ surveys postoperatively (at time of stent removal). Health utilities were assessed using the SF-6D, which is derived from the SF-36. Relationship between health utility and USSQ scores was evaluated using univariable and multivariable regression analyses.

Results

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37 patients have been enrolled to date to date; mean (SD) age was 52.7 (15.8), 64.9% were female. Mean preoperative utility score was 0.68 (0.13), decreasing to 0.64 (0.12) after stent insertion (p=0.06). Mean USSQ pain, urinary and general health (GH) scores were 21.2 (9.5), 31.1 (8.0) and 16.1 (4.4) respectively. Statistically significant association between SF-6D utility and USSQ scores was observed only for the USSQ GH score, which explained 24.6% of the variance in Sf-6D utility score on multivariable analysis (p=0.016).

Conclusion

Preference-based assessment of quality of life in patients with ureteral stents can adequately be assessed using SF-6D utilities, which bear statistical association with the USSQ sub-domain score for general health perception. Quantifying utilities in stented patients provides value in estimating the disease burden associated with stent discomfort, and in providing metrics than can be incorporated in future healthcare econometric analyses.

Funding

none

Lead Authors

Jamie Yoon,
Rush University Medical Center

Co-Authors

David Katz,
Rush University Medical Center

Christopher Ly,
Rush University Medical Center

Avinash Mamgain,
Rush University Medical Center

Morgan Sturgis,
Rush University Medical Center