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 (HUI2) and Mark 3 (HUI3) 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 HUI2, HUI3, 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 HUI2 and HUI3 and the overall HUI2 and HUI3 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 HUI2 and HUI3 were, in general, related to similar constructs in other measures as expected. Conclusions: The evidence suggests that HUI2 and HUI3 are valid for use in OA and THA studies.