External genital warts (EGW) are a sexually transmitted infection caused by various strains of human papillomavirus (HPV). Several studies have described the direct and indirect costs of EGW, while others have reported on the burden of EGW in terms of the impact on the quality of life (QOL) of...

Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) in health economics have recently used the mixed logit (MXL) model to incorporate preference heterogeneity. These studies typically use a classical approach to estimation or have specified normal distributions for the attributes. Specifying normal distributions...

Background: Herpes zoster (HZ), or shingles, results from reactivation of latent varicella zoster virus in the sensory ganglia of adults, and results in significant morbidity in the elderly, including the development of post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). The lifetime risk of HZ is about 20-30% and...

Although numerous paediatric-based health-related quality-of-life (HR-QOL) instruments are currently in use, there still remain conceptual, methodological and developmental issues to address. This paper provides an up-to-date critical review of the HR-QOL literature in paediatric medicine. Our...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common, chronic disease where health-related quality of life (HRQL) is one of the main goals of therapy. As such, instruments used to measure HRQL in RA must be able to discriminate across RA severity. The two basic categories of instruments used to measure HRQL...

Background: There are over 40 000 ischaemic strokes annually in Canada, which result in significant morbidity, mortality and burden to the healthcare system. A recent, large clinical trial has evaluated tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) intravenously for the treatment of acute ischaemic stroke...

Background: Outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy (OPAT) programmes have become prevalent over the past 2 decades. From the US perspective, these programmes have been shown to reduce healthcare costs. No comprehensive analysis has been published from the Canadian perspective. Objective: To...

Objective: To determine the cost effectiveness of enoxaparin therapy versus unfractionated heparin (UFH) therapy for patients with unstable coronary artery disease from the perspective of a Canadian hospital. Design: A predictive decision analysis model using published clinical and economic...