Almazrou Saja H, Alaujan Shiekha S, Al-Aqeel Sinaa A
Clinical Pharmacy Department, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2021 May 1;19(1):71. doi: 10.1186/s12961-021-00721-1.
The number of published economic evaluations of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is notably scarce. Limited local evidence could have a major impact on the implementation of economic evaluation recommendations in the decision-making process in GCC countries. Little is known about the factors affecting researchers who seek to conduct economic evaluations. Therefore, we aimed to assess researcher barriers and facilitators in conducting such studies of GCC countries.
A cross-sectional survey of health economic researchers working in GCC countries was conducted online between January and February 2020. The survey instrument collected researchers' perceived barriers and facilitators and demographic information. For barriers, respondents rated their agreement on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". For facilitators, respondents rated the importance of each facilitator on a six-point scale ranging from "extremely important" to "not very important". Then, participants were asked to select the three most important barriers and facilitators from the lists. The data collected were examined using descriptive analysis.
Fifty-one researchers completed the survey (37% response rate). The majority of participants (more than 80%) agreed that lack of quality of effectiveness data and restricted access to unit cost data are the main barriers to conducting economic research. Availability of relevant local data was reported as an important facilitator, followed by collaboration between health economic researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders.
The results of this study provide an exploratory view of the issues faced by health economics researchers in GCC countries. Recommendations to GCC countries based on international experiences, such as to use real-world data in economic evaluation research, were provided.
关于海湾合作委员会（GCC）国家已发表的经济评估数量明显稀少。有限的本地证据可能会对海湾合作委员会国家决策过程中经济评估建议的实施产生重大影响。对于影响寻求进行经济评估的研究人员的因素知之甚少。因此，我们旨在评估海湾合作委员会国家研究人员在开展此类研究时面临的障碍和促进因素。
2020年1月至2月期间，对在海湾合作委员会国家工作的卫生经济研究人员进行了在线横断面调查。调查工具收集了研究人员感知到的障碍和促进因素以及人口统计学信息。对于障碍，受访者在从“强烈不同意”到“强烈同意”的5点李克特量表上对其认同程度进行评分。对于促进因素，受访者在从“极其重要”到“不太重要”的6点量表上对每个促进因素的重要性进行评分。然后，要求参与者从列表中选择三个最重要的障碍和促进因素。使用描述性分析对收集到的数据进行检查。
51名研究人员完成了调查（回复率为37%）。大多数参与者（超过80%）一致认为，缺乏有效性数据质量和获取单位成本数据受限是开展经济研究的主要障碍。报告称可获得相关本地数据是一个重要的促进因素，其次是卫生经济研究人员、政策制定者和其他利益相关者之间的合作。
本研究结果提供了对海湾合作委员会国家卫生经济研究人员面临问题的探索性观点。基于国际经验，为海湾合作委员会国家提供了相关建议，例如在经济评估研究中使用真实世界数据。
