Economy

Question 1

Health Economic Evaluation

Answer 1

A methodology to maximise patients’ benefits and minimise opportunity cost by comparing the cost and effectiveness of alternative interventions.

Question 2

Partial economic evaluaiton

Answer 2

Assumes equal effectiveness of intervention and just compares costs

Can impact interventions

Identified cost drivers

Dive some data to full economic evaluation

Cannot directly inform resource allocation decisions. E.g.
which interventions are cost-effective and therefore should to be prioritised for funding.

Question 3

Full economic evaluation

Answer 3

Cost-effective analysis
Informs the whole resources allocation

Reccomended by NICE

Question 4

What are the NICE guidelines on economy in psychology?

Answer 4

All their recommendations should take account of the cost-effectiveness of the intervention under assessment.

Health effects should be expressed in Quality-adjusted life of years (QALYs)

Question 5

What health outcomes can be used in an economic evaluation?

Answer 5

Single disease-specific outcome
Generic measure of ‘healthy years’

Question 6

What are examples of single disease-specific outcomes?

Answer 6

• Number of cancer cases identified.
• Reduction in relapse rate.
• Reduction in a scale score (e.g. PANSS)

Question 7

What are examples of Generic measure of ‘healthy years’?

Answer 7

• Quality-adjusted life of years (QALYs)
• Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)

Question 8

What are pros and cons of Generic measure of ‘healthy years’?

Answer 8

Pros
1) Allows comparison across disease areas. Therefore, it can be used to inform resource allocation decisions for all disease areas

2) Allows a study to take into account the adverse health effects associated with interventions and to calculate a net health gain

Cons
* Difficult to measure
* May be less sensitive to changes in effects in certain disease areas

Question 9

What are pros and const of single disease-specific outcomes?

Answer 9

Pros
1) Better face validity and easy to measure
2) Sensitive to small changes for the disease of interest

Cons
1) Can’t cover all impacts of using the intervention
2) Only applicable to certain diseases or conditions
3) The policy relevance of certain outcomes may be unclear: e.g. how much should society be willing to pay per ulcer avoided

Question 10

What are Quality-adjusted life of years (QALYs)?

Answer 10

QALY is a measure in health economics that expresses the additional number of years a person lives as a
result of receiving intervention, taking into account the quality of life of those years.