OBJECTIVES

: As the need to demonstrate the value of medications continues to broaden from safety and efficacy to incorporate comparative effectiveness and economic considerations, the trends in terminology utilized in medical publications have evolved. Identifying terminology and trends can help understand how clinical journals are conveying information and how this information can be utilized by payers and other decision makers. The objective of this review was to determine the frequency and use of terms used to describe value in peer-reviewed medical journals over the last 10 years.

METHODS

: A systematic search of PubMed was conducted from 2008-2018 for the following terms: cost-effectiveness, comparative effectiveness, reimbursement, and access. Two searches were conducted: 1 for all journals listed in PubMed, and 1 for core clinical journals only. Core clinical journals were defined as approximately 120 English-language journals considered to be of immediate interest to practicing physicians (rather than journals that are more academic in nature).

RESULTS

: Access was the most common term used, and showed a relative increase of 159% from 2008-2018 across all journals. Comparative effectiveness also showed an overall drastic increase over the last decade (1121%), though trends from last 5 years indicated a decline in frequency . Cost-effectiveness and reimbursement showed increases across all journals, but their use in core clinical journals has declined over the last decade. All 4 terms showed a marked decrease in appearance in core clinical journals from 2016 to 2018, with exceptional decline from 2017 to 2018.

CONCLUSIONS

: As the push to demonstrate value has evolved over the last decade, so has the use of the terminology associated with it. Understanding this evolution is important for researchers and decision makers as consistency in terminology and definitions is paramount for research that is reliant on synthesizing evidence across studies (e.g. meta-analyses, treatment comparisons, etc.).