New BMJ policy on economic evaluations

doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7386.445

BMJ 2003;326:445 ( 22 February )

Letters

New BMJ policy on economic evaluations

Response of NHS Economic Evaluation Database Research Team

Will the BMJ return clinical trials if submitted without any economic results?

Economic evaluations should be judged on scientific merit

Economic evaluations are often based on many studies

Will the Lancet play ball?

Editor's clarifications

Response of NHS Economic Evaluation Database Research Team

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

EDITOR $---$ We, the NHS Economic Evaluation Database Research Team, agree with Smith that economic evaluations should contain comprehensivereporting of both clinical effectiveness and economic analysisand that the BMJ is right to implement this new policy.¹ Howthe clinical trial results (which inform the economic evaluation)are obtained is often paramount to the understanding and qualityof the economic analysis conducted.²

Research reports are included and abstracted in full on the NHS Economic Evaluation Database (www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd) $---$ ifthey explicitly report costs and clinical outcomes for an interventionand at least one comparator.³ However, to critique the methodadopted in the effectiveness study underpinning the economic evaluationappropriately, our template requires information that is oftenomitted in the report of the economic evaluation. When the parentclinical study has been previously published elsewhere, we obtainthe study and use that alongside the economic research when writingthe . . . [Full text of this article]