ECONOMIC EVALUATION STUDIES OF SELF-MANAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS IN CHRONIC DISEASES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Background: To our knowledge, there has been no overall systematic review focusing on the methodological quality of full economic evaluation studies of self-management interventions. Our objective was to systematically review the literature of full economic evaluation studies of self-management interventions in adult chronic patients and to investigate their methodological quality and cost-effectiveness. Methods: A data extraction form was developed to assess general and randomized controlled trial (RCT) -related characteristics, quality, of the RCTs, economic information and quality of the economic evaluation studies by means of a quality assessment (CHEC-list for trial-based studies, adjusted CHEC-list for model-based studies). Results: Twenty-three reports were found. Sixteen studies (73 percent) lack information on the control intervention(s). Only one study fulfilled all three criteria for quality of RCTs and five studies (23 percent) did not meet any of these criteria. This review included one model-based study; the other studies were trial-based economic evaluation studies based on a RCT. Eight studies (35 percent) used a societal perspective and 12 (60 percent) synthesized costs and effects. Seven studies were categorized into the highest category (