Pharmacoeconomics Principles and Practice

Although the information about medication given in this book has been carefully checked, the author and publisher accept no liability for the accuracy of this information. In every individual case the user must check such information by consulting the relevant literature. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Italian Copyright Law in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from SEEd Medical Publishers Srl. Violations are liable to prosecution under the Italian Copyright Law. Honestly, when I was first asked to serve as editor for a manual on pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research, my first thoughts were: " Another one? Are there not enough around? " and my skeptical face must have shown this, although I did answer that I would take a look on what was already available before making my decision. But then, as I actually did take a look around, I noticed that most of the literature is either academic in style (and weight!), or thought as a textbook for students , while not much is available for people who have to deal with economic evaluations in health care, but do not engage themselves in performing such studies. So we decided to try and provide a text which can serve as a quick reference and as an aid to understand papers dealing with pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research, providing a slim basis of the theoretical background, but then exemplifying the concepts through examples taken from the literature, with the ambition to ease a sound acquaintance without the redundancy of technical details. Accordingly, we structured the book in a first, short section in which the basic definitions commonly used in the jargon are provided, followed by a more in-depth exposition of the main methods and techniques, explained by the description of actual studies retrieved in the published literature. The result is the present text, which the on-field experience of all involved authors has made, in our opinion, a practical tool that can guide stakeholders involved in the decision making process in health care to a robust insight of the theoretical and methodological aspects of …