Antimicrobial resistance and infection control
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Antimicrob Resist Infect Control · Jan 2019
Meta AnalysisUsing the best available data to estimate the cost of antimicrobial resistance: a systematic review.
Valuation of the economic cost of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is important for decision making and should be estimated accurately. Highly variable or erroneous estimates may alarm policy makers and hospital administrators to act, but they also create confusion as to what the most reliable estimates are and how these should be assessed. This study aimed to assess the quality of methods used in studies that quantify the costs of AMR and to determine the best available evidence of the incremental cost of these infections. ⋯ Implementation of AMR policy and decision-making should be guided only by reliable, unbiased estimates of effect size. Generating these estimates requires a thorough understanding of important biases and their impact on measured outcomes. This will ensure that researchers, clinicians, and other key decision makers concerned with increasing public health threat of AMR are accurately guided by the best available evidence.