Quality Assessment of Published Articles in Iranian Journals Related to Economic Evaluation in Health Care Programs Based on Drummond’s Checklist: A Narrative Review

Health economic evaluation research plays an important role in selecting cost-effective interventions. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of published articles in Iranian journals related to economic evaluation in health care programs based on Drummond's checklist in terms of numbers, features, and quality. In the present review study, published articles (Persian and English) in Iranian journals related to economic evaluation in health care programs were searched using electronic databases. In addition, the methodological quality of articles' structure was analyzed by Drummond's standard checklist. Based on the inclusion criteria, the search of databases resulted in 27 articles that fully covered economic evaluation in health care programs. A review of articles in accordance with Drummond's criteria showed that the majority of studies had flaws. The most common methodological weakness in the articles was in terms of cost calculation and valuation. Considering such methodological faults in these studies, it is anticipated that these studies would not provide an appropriate feedback to policy makers to allocate health care resources correctly and select suitable cost-effective interventions. Therefore, researchers are required to comply with the standard guidelines in order to better execute and report on economic evaluation studies.