The EQ-5D is one of the most widely used tools for health-related quality of life (HRQoL). It has an advantage of being easy to conduct as it uses one question for each of the 5 health domains. However, this can also be a disadvantage as there may be areas that cannot be fully assessed using the domains in the tool. Therefore, even people who responded in the EQ-5D that they do not have issues with their health may not necessarily be considered healthy.

Furthermore, there are needs to verify whether the EQ-5D, which was developed in Western society, can accurately evaluate Asians’ quality of life and whether there is a need for new domains that can better assess quality of life. Subsequently, we developed an HRQoL measure that is more suitable to Asian countries.

Our study aims to develop additional domains that are more specific to Asian countries while retaining the existing domains centered on Western society. Using this newly developed tool (EQ-5D with additional domains), we examined the level of health in a general population group and compared results from the original EQ-5D.