This article describes the components that should be included as indirect costs to be consistent with economic theory in studies conducted from a societal perspective. The recently proposed method of how to estimate indirect costs, the friction-cost approach, is shown to exclude many aspects of...

Short term health effects can significantly impact health-related quality of life (HR-QOL). Appropriate healthcare priorities can be set only if they are based on health status measurements which are consistent with how people value both short and long term health effects. This article discusses...

Depressive illness is a common, often unrecognised and untreated condition with substantial associated costs, particularly indirect costs (e.g. lost productivity and absenteeism). The improved tolerability profile of fluoxetine and associated lower discontinuation rates, the relative safety of...

A greater understanding of value associated with new pharmaceutical products should lead to better decision-making. Most commonly cost-effectiveness ratios (CERs) are used to indicate value; however, researchers have recently shown that CER estimates are rarely used by decision-makers in making...

The first edition of the Guidelines for Economic Evaluation of Pharmaceuticals: Canada was published in November 1994. At that time, the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment (CCOHTA) was assigned the task of maintaining and regularly updating the Canadian Guidelines....