Deakin Health Economics, School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia
Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
BMJ Open. 2022 Feb 25;12(2):e055213. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055213.
Head and neck cancer (HNC) is the seventh most common cancer worldwide. Treatment may be associated with the inability to work and substantial out-of-pocket expenses. However, to date, there is little research synthesising quantitative evidence on the financial burden experienced by people affected by HNCs, including family members and informal carers. The purpose of this systematic review is to estimate out-of-pocket costs, reduced or lost income and informal care costs associated with HNC, identify categories of financial burden and investigate which costs predominate when considering financial burden in this population.
A comprehensive search of peer-reviewed literature will be conducted for articles published from 01/01/2010 to 19/03/2021 (CINAHL, Cochrane library, EconLit, Embase, Medline Complete). Published, English-language articles describing primary and secondary research directly related to the topic and quantitative cost data will be included. One researcher will complete the searches and screen results for potentially eligible studies. Three other researchers will independently screen the titles and abstracts of a subset of 30% citations, that is, 10% each. Full text articles will be independently screened by three reviewers. Any disagreement will be resolved by consensus among the team. Study and patient characteristics, cost categories and financial burden will be independently extracted by one reviewer and checked by a second. Methodological quality will be evaluated independently by two reviewers. Descriptive analyses will be undertaken and a narrative summary of the included studies will be provided.
Ethics approval is not required to conduct this research because this is a planned systematic review of published literature. Findings will be presented at leading cancer and health economic conferences, published in a peer-reviewed journal and disseminated via website postings and social media channels.
CRD42021252929.
头颈部癌症（HNC）是全球第七大常见癌症。治疗可能会导致无法工作和大量自付费用。然而，迄今为止，几乎没有研究综合定量证据来证明受 HNC 影响的人（包括家庭成员和非正式护理人员）所经历的经济负担。本系统评价的目的是估计与 HNC 相关的自付费用、减少或丧失的收入和非正式护理费用，确定经济负担的类别，并调查在考虑该人群的经济负担时哪些成本占主导地位。
将对 2010 年 1 月 1 日至 2021 年 3 月 19 日发表的同行评议文献进行全面搜索（CINAHL、Cochrane 图书馆、EconLit、Embase、Medline Complete）。将纳入描述与主题直接相关的原始和二次研究以及定量成本数据的已发表的英文文章。一位研究人员将完成搜索并筛选潜在合格研究的结果。另外三位研究人员将独立筛选 30%的引文标题和摘要，即每人 10%。全文文章将由三位评审员独立筛选。任何分歧将由团队协商解决。研究和患者特征、成本类别和经济负担将由一位评审员独立提取，并由第二位进行核对。方法学质量将由两位评审员独立评估。将进行描述性分析，并提供纳入研究的叙述性总结。
由于这是对已发表文献的计划系统评价，因此进行这项研究不需要伦理批准。研究结果将在领先的癌症和健康经济会议上展示，发表在同行评议期刊上，并通过网站发布和社交媒体渠道传播。
CRD42021252929。
