To help support the delivery of the NHS long-term plan, SSNAP will be introducing some new questions to the 6-month assessment dataset this year. The date that these will be incorporated has not yet been finalised, but we will be informing teams of all changes via email beforehand so that there is time to prepare and detailed guidance and help notes will be uploaded on to the webtool.
Employment status
For Section 8 (6 month assessment), SSNAP will be including two additional questions regarding the patient’s pre-stroke and current employment status.
This question aims to understand if the stroke survivor is back at work and in meaningful employment to the extent that they were doing before their stroke. If the patient is employed but not yet ready to return to work at the time of the 6 month assessment please select ‘Other’.
Should there be an option for people who are still employed but not yet ready to return to work at the 6-month point?
This question aims to identify if the stroke survivor is back at work and in meaningful employment to the extent that they were before their stroke. If the survivor is employed but not yet ready to return to work, please record this as ‘Other’.
EQ5D-5L
SSNAP will also be including patients’ EQ5D-5L score at six months post-stroke. You can find a sample EQ5D-5L questionnaire at the bottom of this article. The EQ5D-5L is a standardised measure of health-related quality of life developed by the EuroQol Group. The EQ5D-5L is a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM), the questionnaire can be completed by patients themselves. The EQ5D-5L is widely used in research and will provide a profile of patient health at 6 months that can be used to assess local and national population health status; examine the impact of healthcare services on health status; and inform the economic evaluation of stroke care programmes and policies.
Teams will need to enter the patient’s score (1-5 or 1-100) for each of the 6 parts of the EQ5D-5L and the SSNAP data analysis team will perform the calculations to determine the overall EQ5D-5L score for routine reports. Teams will not need to perform any analysis themselves. Please see the EQ5D-5L sample PDF at bottom of this article for a more detailed breakdown of the scores. Teams will not require a license to use the EQ5D-5L.
A breakdown of 1-5 is available here: Entering the EQ-5D-5L in SSNAP
A quick video describing the EQ-5D is available here: Explaining the EQ-5D in about two and a half minutes.
An electronic demo version for laptops or computers is available here: Self-complete version on laptop/desktops - USA and UK English
Is there some training on the EQ5D that can be recommended?
The EuroQol website has resources and user guides: https://euroqol.org/eq-5d-instruments/eq-5d-5l-about/
Will the EQ-5D-5L be collected at any point on the pathway before 6 months?
For SSNAP purposes, EQ5D-5L will only be collected at 6 months.
If the community team does not use the EQ5D-5L routinely, are we now asking them to start doing it as an extra tool?
EQ5D-5L will be mandatory on the webtool and will need to be answered for each 6 month assessment performed.
Does EuroQol require a license?
The SSNAP team have obtained a license for the EQ5D-5L, which covers all participating teams that enter 6 month assessment data. As the contracting party (SSNAP) are an overarching entity, there is no need for teams to register separately. The EQ-5D-5L documents have now been uploaded onto the webtool and can be accessed by logged in users.
To access the EQ-5D-5L documents, once logged in go to: Clinical > 6 month assessment > Guidance, then click EQ-5D-5L in the left-hand menu.
IMPORTANT: The EQ-5D-5L documents available on the webtool must only be accessed by users who have accepted SSNAP's terms and conditions and who are registered on the SSNAP webtool. The documents must not be shared with other members of your team who do not have access to the webtool as this would be in breach of the license agreement.
If members of your team require access to the EQ-5D-5L documents, please advise them to register on the webtool - registration instructions can be found here. You can register as many users for your team as you require. If you experience any difficulty registering for the webtool, please contact the SSNAP helpdesk (ssnap@kcl.ac.uk).