Value in health : the journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research
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To quantify the cost differences and predictors of lost productive time (LPT) in persons with chronic migraine (CM) and episodic migraine (EM). ⋯ LPT is more costly and increases more rapidly for those with CM than for those with EM as age increases.
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The Treatment Satisfaction with Medicines Questionnaire (SATMED-Q) has shown appropriate psychometric properties exploring patients' satisfaction with treatment. Responsiveness (sensitivity to change) and known-group validity, however, still remained unknown. Thus, the goal of this study was to explore such psychometric properties for the SATMED-Q. ⋯ The SATMED-Q was sensitive to changes in patients' satisfaction with treatment. In addition, patients' different heath statuses are correlated with different levels of satisfaction with treatment.
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Comparative Study
Cost-effectiveness analysis: stress ulcer bleeding prophylaxis with proton pump inhibitors, H2 receptor antagonists.
Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and H2-receptor antagonists (H2RAs) present varying pharmacological efficacy in preventing stress ulcer bleeding (SUB) in intensive care units. The literature also reports disparate rates of ventilator-assisted pneumonia (VAP) as side effects of these treatments. We compared the cost-effectiveness of these two prophylactic pharmacological options. ⋯ PPI prophylaxis is the most efficient prophylactic strategy in patients at high risk of developing SUB when compared with using H2RAs.
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Health promotion (HP) interventions have outcomes that go beyond health. Such broader nonhealth outcomes are usually neglected in economic evaluation studies. To allow for their consideration, insights are needed into the types of nonhealth outcomes that HP interventions produce and their relative importance compared with health outcomes. This study explored consumer preferences for health and nonhealth outcomes of HP in the context of lifestyle behavior change. ⋯ Health outcomes and nonhealth outcomes of lifestyle behavior change were both important to consumers in this study. Decision makers should respond to consumer preferences and consider nonhealth outcomes when deciding about HP interventions.
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Over the past 50 years, health care has been making a growing contribution to population health in many countries. Yet its benefits are still denied to many people worldwide. This article describes how many countries, both developed and developing, have pursued the quest to achieve universal health care. ⋯ Throughout, the United States has been an exception. An analysis of progress toward universal health care, combining a review of existing theories and new empirical analysis, identifies five factors as important: the strength of organized labor and left-wing parties, adequate economic resources, absence of societal divisions, weakness of institutions that might oppose it (such as organized medicine), and windows of opportunity. Having noted the substantial benefits accruing from universal health care, the article concludes with an analysis of how universal health care is under threat in some European countries and a warning about the risks posed by current radical austerity policies.