Reading and interpreting economic evaluations in rheumatoid arthritis: an assessment of selected instruments for critical appraisal.
OBJECTIVE
To describe and compare the relative attributes (reliability, ease of use, applicability, and relevance) of different assessment tools for economic analyses as they pertain to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) literature.


METHODS
An expert panel, comprising rheumatology researchers and clinicians, operationalized 2 economic appraisal instruments and applied them to 11 articles used for analysis. Each expert reviewed 3 articles, with each article independently reviewed by a pair of experts. A summary score for each article per appraisal instrument was calculated by dividing the number of items that received a "positive" response by the total number of items in the appraisal instrument.


RESULTS
Scores for each article were similar across reviewers and appraisal instruments.


CONCLUSIONS
There is a need for a more comprehensive approach for evaluating this rapidly growing body of economic literature that is not only valid and reliable, but also easy to apply and understand. Although consistency between reviewers was good on both guidelines, inter-guideline discrepancies were noted and reviewers reported some difficulty in using the operationalized format.
Weisman
Michael H
MH
Evidence-Based Medicine Working Groups in Rheumatology, Beverly Hills, CA, USA.
Gano
Anacleto D
AD
Gabriel
Sherine E
SE
Hochberg
Marc C
MC
Kavanaugh
Arthur
A
Ofman
Joshua J
JJ
Prashker
Mark
M
Suarez-Almazor
Maria E
ME
Yelin
Edward
E
Nakelsky
Shoshanna D
SD
Croft
Joseph D
JD
D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000191:economics*; D004467:Economics; D004470:Economics, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D017712:Peer Review, Research; D015203:Reproducibility of Results