Table VIII.

Quality assessment of articles using Cochrane criteria

Cochrane criteria	Chun et al., 2016	Chowers et al., 2015	Bessesen et al., 2013	Hassan et al., 2007	Montecalvo et al., 2001	van Rijen et al., 2009	Wassenberg et al., 2011
1. Is the study population clearly described?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2. Are competing alternatives clearly described?	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
3. Is a well-defined research question posed in answerable form?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
4. Is the economic study design appropriate to the stated objective?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
5. Is the chosen time horizon appropriate to include relevant costs and consequences?	Moderate	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
6. Is the actual perspective chosen appropriate?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
7. Are all important and relevant costs for each alternative identified?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Moderate	Yes	Yes	Yes
8. Are all costs measured appropriately in physical units?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
9. Are costs valued appropriately?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
10. Are all important and relevant outcomes for each alternative identified?	Moderate	Moderate	Yes	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Yes
11. Are all outcomes measured appropriately?	Yes	No	Yes	Moderate	Yes	Yes	Yes
12. Are outcomes valued appropriately?	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
13. Is an incremental analysis of costs and outcomes of alternatives performed?	Yes	Yes	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	No
14. Are all future costs and outcomes discounted appropriately?	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
15. Are all important variables, whose values are uncertain, appropriately subjected to sensitivity analysis?	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
16. Do the conclusions follow from the data reported?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
17. Does the study discuss the generalizability of the results to other settings and patient/client groups?	No	Yes	Moderate	Yes	Moderate	Yes	Moderate
18. Does the article indicate that there is no potential conflict of interest of study researcher(s) and funder(s)?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
19. Are ethical and distributional issues discussed appropriately?	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Overall assessment
High	14 (73.7%)	15 (78.9%)	13 (68.4%)	10 (52.6%)	11 (57.9%)	13 (68.4%)	13 (68.4%)
Moderate	2 (10.5%)	1 (5.3%)	2 (10.5%)	4 (21.1%)	3 (15.8%)	2 (10.5%)	1 (5.3%)
Low	3 (15.8%)	3 (15.8%)	4 (21.1%)	5 (26.3%)	5 (26.3%)	4 (21.1%)	5 (26.3%)