Health economic evaluations potentially provide
valuable information to clinicians, health care administrators,
and policy makers regarding the financial implications of decisions
about the care of patients. The highest quality research should
be used to inform decisions that have direct impact on the access
to care and the outcome of treatment. However, economic analyses
are often complex and use research methods which are relatively unfamiliar
to clinicians. Furthermore, health economic data have substantial
national, regional, and institutional variability, which can limit
the external validity of the results of a study. Therefore, minimum
guidelines that aim to standardise the quality and transparency
of reporting health economic research have been developed, and instruments
are available to assist in the assessment of its quality and the
interpretation of results. The purpose of this editorial is to discuss the principal types
of health economic studies, to review the most common instruments
for judging the quality of these studies and to describe current
reporting guidelines. Recommendations for the submission of these
types of studies to Cite this article:
We explore the limitations of complete reliance
on evidence-based medicine which can be diminished by confounding
issues and sampling bias. Other strategies which may be reasonably
invoked are discussed. Cite this article:
