A Systematic Review on the Extent and Quality of Pharmacoeconomic Publications in Egypt.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Egypt faces many challenges when matching patient needs with available resources. Consequently, there has been an increasing interest in pharmacoeconomics as an aid tool in health decision-making to better allocate resources. OBJECTIVES: To review and evaluate the volume and the quality of published pharmacoeconomic studies in Egypt. METHODS: A literature search was conducted in August 2018 using PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane library to identify published Egyptian pharmacoeconomic studies. Articles were included if they were original economic studies, written and published in English, and conducted in Egypt. Each article was assessed independently by two reviewers using the 100-point Quality of Health Evaluation Studies (QHES) scale. RESULTS: Fifteen studies published between 2002 and 2017 were included in the review. Most of them were cost-effectiveness analyses (60%). The minority used secondary data (33.3%) or adopted modeling techniques (40%). The mean QHES score of the included studies was 70.1 ± 21.8, and approximately 40% of them had a QHES score of more than 80. CONCLUSION: Pharmacoeconomic evaluations in Egypt are still in their infancy. The Egyptian guidelines for economic evaluation should be adopted and the EQ-5D-5L value sets should be developed to increase the quality of economic research.