OBJECTIVES: The study was conducted to describe the characteristics and quality of health economic (including pharmacoeconomics) evaluation research studies related to Nigeria.   METHODS: A literature review was conducted to identify health economic evaluation articles. Main databases (e.g., PUBMED, MEDLINE) were used to search for economic analyses. The study included only original economic evaluations that pertained to Nigeria, addressed a health-related topic (e.g., pharmacy) and were complete peer-reviewed publications in the English language. Two reviewers independently evaluated and scored each article in the final sample using a data collection form. RESULTS: The 44 identified articles were published in 34 different journals mostly based outside of Nigeria between 1988 and 2009. On average, each article was written by four authors. Most (98%) first authors had medical/clinical training and resided in Nigeria (75%) at the time of publication of the study. Based on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 indicating the highest quality, the mean quality score for all studies was 7.29 (SD=1.21) and 59 percent of the articles were of fair quality (score 5-7). The quality of articles was statistically significantly related (p<0.05) to the country of residence of primary author (non-Nigeria=higher), the country of journal (non-Nigeria=higher), primary objective of the study (economic evaluation as the objective=higher), and type of economic analysis conducted (full economic evaluations=higher). The quality of the articles was not significantly related to the sample size, type of data (primary vs secondary), number of authors, type of publication, year of publication, study perspective and primary health intervention (p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The conduct of health economics (including pharmacoeconomics) evaluation research in Nigeria is limited and about two-thirds of published articles were of fair quality. More and better quality health economics research in Nigeria is warranted.