A noticeable difference? Productivity costs related to paid and unpaid work in economic evaluations on expensive drugs.

Productivity costs can strongly impact cost-effectiveness outcomes. This study investigated the impact in the context of expensive hospital drugs. This study aimed to: (1) investigate the effect of productivity costs on cost-effectiveness outcomes, (2) determine whether economic evaluations of expensive drugs commonly include productivity costs related to paid and unpaid work, and (3) explore potential reasons for excluding productivity costs from the economic evaluation. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify economic evaluations of 33 expensive drugs. We analysed whether evaluations included productivity costs and whether inclusion or exclusion was related to the study population's age, health and national health economic guidelines. The impact on cost-effectiveness outcomes was assessed in studies that included productivity costs. Of 249 identified economic evaluations of expensive drugs, 22 (9 %) included productivity costs related to paid work. One study included unpaid productivity. Mostly, productivity cost exclusion could not be explained by the study population's age and health status, but national guidelines appeared influential. Productivity costs proved often highly influential. This study indicates that productivity costs in economic evaluations of expensive hospital drugs are commonly and inconsistently ignored in economic evaluations. This warrants caution in interpreting and comparing the results of these evaluations.

Does including informal care in economic evaluations matter? A systematic review of inclusion and impact of informal care in cost-effectiveness studies.

BACKGROUND: Informal care makes an important contribution to societal welfare. However, it may involve substantial time costs and can have a considerable negative effect on the health and well-being of informal caregivers. These costs and effects of informal caregiving are often excluded in economic evaluations of healthcare interventions. The impact of this exclusion on the outcomes of these evaluations is largely unknown. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore the inclusion of informal care in economic evaluations and the potential impact of the costs and effects of informal caregiving on cost-effectiveness outcomes. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted to identify economic evaluations of interventions in four distinct disease areas where informal care is potentially important: Alzheimer's disease, metastatic colorectal cancer, Parkinson's disease and rheumatoid arthritis. It was recorded how often economic evaluations included informal caregiving. Next, for the studies including informal care, the impact on cost-effectiveness outcomes was determined by removing informal care costs and effects of the cost-effectiveness calculations and recalculating the outcomes. The new cost-effectiveness outcomes were then compared with the original reported outcomes. RESULTS: The study identified 100 economic evaluations investigating interventions targeted at Alzheimer's disease (n = 25), metastatic colorectal cancer (n = 24), Parkinson's disease (n = 8) and rheumatoid arthritis (n = 43). Twenty-three of these evaluations (23 %) included costs and/or effects of informal caregiving: 64 % of the Alzheimer's disease studies, 0 % of the metastatic colorectal cancer studies, 13 % of Parkinson's disease studies and 14 % of rheumatoid arthritis studies. When informal care was included, this mostly concerned time costs. Studies rarely included both costs and effects. The effect of including or excluding informal care costs or effects on cost-effectiveness outcomes in most studies was modest, but in some studies the impact was strong. CONCLUSION: Most economic evaluations in the area of Alzheimer's disease include costs and/or effects related to informal caregiving. However, in other disease areas where informal caregiving is common it seems that the majority of economic evaluations ignore informal caregiving. The inclusion of informal care can have a strong impact on cost-effectiveness outcomes. Future economic evaluations should therefore consider the relevance of informal care in the context of their study, and either include these costs and effects or justify why they were excluded.

Do productivity costs matter?: the impact of including productivity costs on the incremental costs of interventions targeted at depressive disorders.

BACKGROUND: When guidelines for health economic evaluations prescribe that a societal perspective should be adopted, productivity costs should be included. However, previous research suggests that, in practice, productivity costs are often neglected. This may considerably bias the results of cost-effectiveness studies, particularly those regarding treatments targeted at diseases with a high incidence rate in the working population, such as depressive disorders. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to, first, investigate whether economic evaluations of treatments for depressive disorders include productivity costs and, if so, how. Second, to investigate how the inclusion or exclusion of productivity costs affects incremental costs. METHODS: A systematic literature review was performed. Included articles were reviewed to determine (i) whether productivity costs had been included and (ii) whether the studies adhered to national health economic guidelines about the inclusion or exclusion of these costs. For those studies that did include productivity costs, we calculated what proportion of total costs were productivity costs. Subsequently, the incremental costs, excluding productivity costs, were calculated and compared with the incremental costs presented in the original article, to analyse the impact of productivity costs on final results. Regression analyses were used to investigate the relationship between the level of productivity costs and the type of depressive disorder, the type of treatment and study characteristics such as time horizon used and productivity cost valuation method. RESULTS: A total of 81 unique economic evaluations of treatments for adults with depressive disorders were identified, 24 of which included productivity costs in the numerator and one in the denominator. Approximately 69% of the economic evaluations ignored productivity costs. Two-thirds of the studies complied with national guidelines regarding the inclusion of productivity costs. For the studies that included productivity costs, these costs reflected an average of 60% of total costs per treatment arm. The inclusion or exclusion of productivity costs substantially affected incremental costs in a number of studies. Regression analyses showed that the level of productivity costs was significantly associated with study characteristics such as average age, the methods of data collection regarding work time lost, the values attached to lost work time, the type of depressive disorder, the type of treatment provided and the level of direct costs. CONCLUSIONS: Studies that do not include productivity costs may, in many cases, poorly reflect full societal costs (or savings) of an intervention. Furthermore, when comparing total costs reported in studies that include productivity costs, it should be noted that study characteristics such as the methods used to assess productivity costs may affect their level.