The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care
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The nine-item Shared Decision Making Questionnaire (SDM-Q-9) is one of the most frequently applied instruments for assessing patients' involvement in medical decision-making. Our objectives were to develop a Hungarian version of SDM-Q-9, to evaluate its psychometric properties and to compare its performance between primary and specialised care settings. ⋯ The overall good measurement properties of the Hungarian SDM-Q-9 make the questionnaire suitable for use in both primary and specialised care settings. SDM-Q-9 may be useful for health policies targeting the implementation of shared decision-making and aiming to improve efficiency and quality of care in Hungary.
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EQ-5D-3L population data are available only from Hungary, Poland and Slovenia in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We aimed to compare the accessible studies and estimate a regional EQ-5D-3L population norm for CEE. ⋯ Besides gender and age, education should be considered during the design and interpretation of quality-of-life studies in CEE. The estimated regional EQ-5D-3L population norm may be used as a benchmark by CEE countries with lack of local dataset. However, the substantial inter-country differences in health status and scarcity of data over age 65 call for harmonized country-specific EQ-5D-3L population norm studies in the CEE region.
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The decision matrix applied by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) for the quantification of added benefit within the early benefit assessment of new pharmaceuticals in Germany with its nine fields is quite complex and could be simplified. Furthermore, the method used by IQWiG is subject to manifold criticism: (1) it is implicitly weighting endpoints differently in its assessments favoring overall survival and, thereby, drug interventions in fatal diseases, (2) it is assuming that two pivotal trials are available when assessing the dossiers submitted by the pharmaceutical manufacturers, leading to far-reaching implications with respect to the quantification of added benefit, and, (3) it is basing the evaluation primarily on dichotomous endpoints and consequently leading to an information loss of usable evidence. ⋯ By converging with the approach of approval authorities for confirmatory endpoints, the decision matrix could be simplified and the analysis method could be improved, to put the results on a more valid statistical basis.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The cost-effectiveness of nivolumab monotherapy for the treatment of advanced melanoma patients in England.
Nivolumab was the first programmed death receptor 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor to demonstrate long-term survival benefit in a clinical trial setting for advanced melanoma patients. ⋯ Nivolumab is a cost-effective treatment for advanced melanoma patients in England.
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Comparative Study
Validation and comparison of the psychometric properties of the EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L instruments in Greece.
To validate and compare the psychometric properties of the EQ-5D-3L with the EQ-5D-5L classification systems in Greece. ⋯ Both EQ-5D versions demonstrated good construct validity and had consistent redistribution. The EQ-5D-5L system may be preferable to the EQ-5D-3L, as it exhibited superior performance in terms of lower ceiling effects, higher absolute and relative informativity, and improved convergent and known-groups validity efficiency.