SOCIOECONOMIC EVALUATION OF RHEUMATOID-ARTHRITIS AND OSTEOARTHRITIS -A LITERATURE-REVIEW

Limited resources and the need to improve the cost-effectiveness of me dical procedures underlie the increasing importance of socioeconomic e valuations of health care. A search of MEDLINE was conducted to identi fy publications on the socioeconomic aspects of the two most important joint diseases: rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA). An alysis of the retrieved publications focused on three areas: (1) descr iption of the socioeconomic effects of these diseases; (2) methodologi cal approaches of the economic analyses; and (3) discussion from the p erspective of patients, clinicians, or public health policymakers. Of 52 publications dealing with cost data for RA and OA, 44 presented ori ginal and recently collected and developed data. Twenty-six were class ified as cost analyses, three as cost-benefit analyses, and 11 as cost -effectiveness analyses (four did not fit into any of these classifica tions). Eight established methodological criteria were used to test fo r ''full economic evaluation''; none of the reviewed studies fulfilled all eight, and only one study fulfilled seven. The gap between the im portance of the socioeconomic effects of RA and OA and the research co nducted in this field is considerable. A quality standard could be dev eloped to serve as a guideline for further research. (C) 1997 by W.B. Saunders Company.