Objectives Economic evaluations to inform decision making in health resource allocations are scarce in the low and middle income countries, including in Sri Lanka. Quality adjusted life years are the most common outcome measure in contemporary health economic evaluations. Country specific utility weights are necessary to derive quality component of the QALYs. The EQ-5D-3L is the most commonly used multi attribute utility instrument which facilitated utility estimation. Due to the limitations in specific disease conditions, the EuroQol group has developed a new EQ-5D-5L classification system. This study estimated the Sri Lankan value set for the EQ-5D-5L using a crosswalk methodology.

Methods The EuroQol group had made available crosswalk methods to obtain interim value set for the EQ-5D-5L health states using available EQ-5D-3L values. This was achieved by mapping EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L ratings through cross tabulations by each dimension level. An interim values set for the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L health states were generated based upon the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-3L value set. The Sri Lankan EQ-5D-3L value set was estimated using Time_Trade_off method (n=736). Comparison were conducted between the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L values and other countries.

Results The Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L had the same value for the worst health state as the EQ-5D-3L. However, the best possible utility for a health state other than the full health was different. There were substantial deviations between the Sri Lankan and the UK and Japanese values. The Thailand values were similar to the Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L values.

Conclusions Currently only Sri Lankan EQ-5D-5L (and 3L) values are the only utility value sets available in the South Asian region. Economic evaluations conducted in this region are encouraged to them.