Table 2

Quality assessment of the included studies using the Consensus Health Economic Criteria (CHEC) list

Item	Mortimer et al12	Becker et al13	Hoeijenbos et al14
1. Is the study population clearly described?	Yes	Yes	No
2. Are competing alternatives clearly described?	Yes	Yes	Yes
3. Is a well-defined research question posed in answerable form?	Yes	Yes	No
4. Is the economic study design appropriate to the stated objective?	Yes	Yes	Yes
5. Is the chosen time horizon appropriate to include relevant costs and consequences?	Yes	Yes	Yes
6. Is the actual perspective chosen appropriate?	No	Yes	Yes
7. Are all important and relevant costs for each alternative identified?	Yes	Yes*	Yes
8. Are all costs measured appropriately in physical units?	Yes	Yes*	Yes
9. Are costs valued appropriately?	Yes	No*	No
10. Are all important and relevant outcomes for each alternative identified?	No	No	No
11. Are all outcomes measured appropriately?	No	No	No
12. Are outcomes valued appropriately?	No	Yes	Yes
13. Is an incremental analysis of costs and outcomes of alternatives performed?	Yes	Yes	No
14. Are all future costs and outcomes discounted appropriately?	No	Yes	Yes
15. Are all important variables, whose values are uncertain, appropriately subjected to sensitivity analysis?	No	No	No
16. Do the conclusions follow from the data reported?	No	No	Yes
17. Does the study discuss the generalizability of the results to other settings and patient/client groups?	Yes	Yes	Yes
18. Does the article indicate that there is no potential conflict of interest of study researcher(s) and funder(s)?	Yes	Yes	No
19. Are ethical and distributional issues discussed appropriately?	Yes	No	No
Total (%)	63	68	53