How should cost data in pragmatic randomised trials be analysed?

doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7243.1197

BMJ 2000;320:1197-1200 ( 29 April )

Education and debate

How should cost data in pragmatic randomised trials be analysed?

Simon G Thompson, professor, Julie A Barber, research fellow.

Department of Medical Statistics and Evaluation, Imperial College School of Medicine, London W12 0NN

Correspondence to: S G Thompson, MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge CB2 2SR simon.thompson@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Pragmatic randomised trials are usually large scale multicentre studies in which interventions or medical policies are comparedin a realistic setting.¹ The intention is that conclusionsfrom these trials, if accepted, can be adopted directly into medicalpractice.² Economic evaluations carried out alongside thesetrials are increasingly common because it is often important toassess costs and cost effectiveness as well as clinical outcomes.³Costs are usually derived from information about the quantityof healthcare resources used by each patient in the trial. Thequantities of each resource used are multiplied by fixed unitcost values and are then summed over the separate types of resourceto give a total cost per patient.⁴

Table Removed (Available Only in the Full Text)

This information leads to a range of different costs across participants in the trial. As an example, the figure shows thedistribution of costs in women with menorrhagia randomised totreatment with endometrial resection or abdominal hysterectomy.⁵. . . [Full text of this article]

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