Identifying economic evaluations for health technology assessment

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Health Technology Assessment
• Information Science

Background:

• Health technology assessment (HTA) relies on comprehensive economic evaluations and models.
• Efficiently identifying these economic evaluations is crucial for HTA processes.
• Current methods for searching economic evaluations require systematic review.

Purpose of the Study:

• To survey resources for identifying economic evaluations.
• To provide guidance on efficient searching strategies for economic evaluations.
• To comment on the current evidence base for economic evaluation retrieval.

Main Methods:

• Review of published checklists and recommended search strategies.
• Identification of specific and general information resources for economic evaluations.
• Analysis of search filter effectiveness in biomedical databases.

Main Results:

• Specific databases (NHS EED, HEED) are recommended for economic evaluations, with database-specific options enhancing efficiency.
• Large biomedical databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE) require economic search filters, which are sensitive but lack precision.
• Other resources like HTA and DARE databases can identify economic evaluation reports.

Conclusions:

• A high proportion of economic evaluations can be identified, but search efficiency needs improvement.
• Key high-yield resources exist, but their overlap and unique contributions require further investigation.
• Exploration of gray literature resources and clear definitions of economic evaluations are needed for future research.