Review and estimation of disutility for joint health states of severe and nonsevere hypoglycemic events in diabetes

Aim: Many economic evaluations used linear or log-transformed additive methods to estimate the disutility of hypoglycemic events in diabetes, both nonsevere (NSHEs) and severe (SHEs). Methods: We conducted a literature search for studies of disutility for hypoglycemia. We used additive, minimum and multiplicative methods, and the adjusted decrement estimator to estimate the disutilities of joint health states with both NSHEs and SHEs in six scenarios. Results: Twenty-four studies reported disutilities for hypoglycemia in diabetes. Based on construct validity, the adjusted decrement estimator method likely provides less biased estimates, predicting that when SHEs occur, the additional impact from NSHEs is marginal. Conclusion: Our proposed new method provides a different perspective on the estimation of quality-adjusted life-years in economic evaluations of hypoglycemic treatments.