How to prepare a systematic review of economic evaluations for informing evidence-based healthcare decisions: a five-step approach (part 1/3)

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Systematic reviews of economic evaluations are useful for synthesizing economic evidence about health interventions and for informing evidence-based decisions.

Areas covered: As there is no detailed description of the methods for performing a systematic review of economic evidence, this paper aims to provide an overview of state-of-the-art methodology. This is laid out in a 5-step approach, as follows: step 1) initiating a systematic review; step 2) identifying (full) economic evaluations; step 3) data extraction, risk of bias and transferability assessment; step 4) reporting results; step 5) discussion and interpretation of findings.

Expert commentary: The paper aims to help inexperienced reviewers and clinical practice guideline developers, but also to be a resource for experts in the field who want to check on current methodological developments.

KEYWORDS:

• Methods
• systematic reviews
• economic evaluations
• clinical practice guidelines
• guidance
• quality appraisal
• risk of bias
• search strategies
• databases
• data extraction
• reporting and discussion

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This project received financial support from the Dutch Society of Medical Specialists, (project number: 329666498, Utrecht) and from ZonMw (the Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development, project number: 836022001, The Hague).