Quality of reporting of economic evaluations in rehabilitation research: a systematic review

The quality of reporting of health economic evaluations for rehabilitation services has been questioned, limiting the ability to provide accurate recommendations for health decisions.

To document current overall reporting quality of the published literature for economic evaluations of rehabilitation services using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS), and to identify factors that could influence the quality of reporting.

Electronic literature searches were performed using MEDLINE and the NHS Economic Evaluations Database via the Cochrane Library.

Prospective rehabilitation economic evaluation articles from 2013 to 2020 were selected.

Data were extracted by one reviewer and independently verified by a second reviewer.

Title and abstracts of 3,454 papers were reviewed. 204 papers were selected for a full text screening. From those, 129 potential papers were identified to be included in this study.

Only two databases were used in data collection, and papers were selected from 2013 to 2020 only.

Inconsistent reporting in health economic evaluations of rehabilitation services has continued, despite the availability of the CHEERS checklist. The methods of the analyzed studies were frequently under-reported, thereby creating challenges in determining whether the results reported were valid.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONVariable quality of reporting has been identified in rehabilitation research assessing cost-effectiveness.To grow as an area of expertise, the field of rehabilitation must produce research demonstrating its cost-effectiveness.Both rehabilitation clinicians and funders would benefit from full and transparent information to identify optimal solutions for effective and efficient care.