WITHDRAWN The Quality of Reporting Methods and Results of Cost-Effectiveness Analyses Conducted in India: A Methodological Systematic Review

OBJECTIVES: To identify cost-effectiveness studies conducted in India and report their characteristics. And to assess the quality of the studies conducted in India using cost-effectiveness analysis.

METHODS: A systematic search was performed using PubMed and Google Scholar from the inception to 30th August 2021 to identify studies conducted in India. A combination of keywords, MeSH terms on cost-effectiveness, and India were used with Boolean operators. The study included all the cost-effectiveness analyses conducted that have used quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) as the outcome measures. Two reviewers independently extracted data using a self-developed item data collection form designed to assess reporting details of the studies. Quality of studies was evaluated using the Consensus on Health Economic Criteria (CHEC) and Quality of health economic studies (QHES) checklists. The collected data were analyzed descriptively.

RESULTS: A total of 48 studies were included. Very few studies (7, 14.5%) have reported working from protocol. Around 85% of studies were model based (Markov model). Most study interventions were categorized as therapeutic (45.83%). Very few studies (2, 4.16%) reported a complete description for QALY calculation. Most of studies (34, 70.8%) reported that study intervention produced "most costs and more QALYs" than the comparator. Most of studies (39, 81.25%) were reported favorable conclusions. Most articles showed moderate quality when assessed with the CHEC (68.75%) and QHES (45.83%). In CHEC, most studies have not mentioned costs of physical units (39, 81.3%) and are not valued appropriately (27, 56.3%). In contrast, in QHES many studies did not mention about study objective (26, 54.2%), data abstraction (32, 66.7%) leads to low quality.

CONCLUSIONS: Several crucial components of techniques and outcomes were commonly lacking in published cost-effectiveness analyses from India. It is hard to ascertain the validity of research findings and conclusions without a complete and comprehensive description of how studies were organized and executed.