Cost-based evaluations of the treatment of back pain: a primer for health-care professionals.
BACKGROUND
There is an extensive literature on the costs of back pain and on cost-based evaluations of the effectiveness of alternative modes of care for back pain. An understanding of the adequacy of a study often requires information that is not part of the experience or training of health-care professionals. The article seeks to provide clinicians with some criteria by which to judge the validity of cost-based evaluations of the treatment and consequences of back pain.


OBJECTIVE
This article is not a comprehensive, critical review of the research literature on the costs of back pain or the relative cost-effectiveness of different methods of care for back pain. It presents, instead, a discussion of some important characteristics of cost-related studies of back pain and some criteria that can be used to evaluate the validity of cost estimates and cost-effectiveness analyses related to back pain.


METHODS
A guide for the evaluation of cost-based studies of back pain.


METHODS
A summary of criteria for the evaluation of the validity of cost-based studies of back pain.


RESULTS
Three sets of criteria for evaluation, ranked from most important to least important.


CONCLUSIONS
Application of the suggested criteria can enhance the ability of health-care professionals to better understand the limits and relative adequacy of cost-based studies of back pain.
School of Health Management and Policy, Department of Economics, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 874906, Tempe, AZ 85287-4506, USA. William.G.Johnson@asu.edu
William G
WG
Johnson
D000041:Absenteeism; D001416:Back Pain / Q000191:economics* / Q000628:therapy*; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004526:Efficiency; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D016896:Treatment Outcome