Mapping the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) onto the Assessment of Quality of Life 8D (AQoL-8D) utility scores

Purpose The Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) is a widely used condition-specific measure of quality of life (QoL) in patients with heart failure. To use information from the MLHFQ in an economic evaluation, the MLHFQ must be mapped onto a preference-based measure of QoL. This study aims to develop a mapping algorithm between the MLHFQ and the Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) 8D utility instrument in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Methods MLHFQ and AQoL-8D data were collected on 61 Australian adults with idiopathic DCM or other non-hypertrophic cardiomyopathies. Three statistical methods were used as follows: ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, the robust MM estimator, and the generalised linear models (GLM). Each included a range of explanatory variables. Model performance was assessed using key goodness-of-fit measures, the mean absolute error (MAE), and the root-mean-square error (RMSE). Results The MLHFQ summary score and AQoL-8D utility scores were strongly correlated ( r = − 0.83, p