Citation

Lu J, Roe C, Aas E, Lapane KL, Niemeier JP, Arango-Lasprilla JC, Andelic N. J. Neurotrauma 2013; 30(23): 1925-1933.

Affiliation

Virginia Commonwealth University, Epidemiology and Community Health, Richmond, Virginia, United States ; jlu1@vcu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2013.2891

PMID

23879599

Abstract

The effort to standardize the methodology and adherence to recommended principles for all economic evaluations has been emphasized in medical literatures. The objective of this review is to examine whether economic analyses evaluations in traumatic brain injury (TBI) research have been compliant with existing guidelines. Medline search was performed between January 1, 1995 and August 11, 2012. All original TBI-related full economic evaluations were included in the study. Two authors independently rated each study's methodology and data presentation to determine compliance to the 10 methodological principles recommended by Blackmore et al.. Descriptive analysis was used to summarize the data. Inter-rater reliability was assessed with Kappa statistics. A total of 28 studies met the inclusion criteria. Eighteen of these studies described cost-effectiveness, seven cost-benefit and three cost-utility analyses. The results showed a rapid growth in the number of published articles on the economic impact of TBI since 2000 and an improvement in their methodological quality. However, overall compliance with recommended methodological principles of TBI-related economic evaluation has been deficient. On average, about six of the 10 criteria were followed in these publications, and only two articles met all 10 criteria. These findings call for an increased awareness of the methodological standards that should be followed by investigators both in performance of economic evaluation and in reviews of evaluation reports prior to publication. The results also suggest that all economic evaluations should be made by following the guidelines within a conceptual framework, in order to facilitate evidence-based practices in the field of TBI.

Language: en