Value of Information for Clinical Trial Design: The Importance of Considering All Relevant Comparators

Anna Heath (), Gianluca Baio, Ioanna Manolopoulou and Nicky J. Welton
Additional contact information
Anna Heath: Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children
Gianluca Baio: University College London
Ioanna Manolopoulou: University College London
Nicky J. Welton: University of Bristol

PharmacoEconomics, 2024, vol. 42, issue 5, No 2, 479-486

Abstract: Abstract Value of Information (VOI) analyses calculate the economic value that could be generated by obtaining further information to reduce uncertainty in a health economic decision model. VOI has been suggested as a tool for research prioritisation and trial design as it can highlight economically valuable avenues for future research. Recent methodological advances have made it increasingly feasible to use VOI in practice for research; however, there are critical differences between the VOI approach and the standard methods used to design research studies such as clinical trials. We aimed to highlight key differences between the research design approach based on VOI and standard clinical trial design methods, in particular the importance of considering the full decision context. We present two hypothetical examples to demonstrate that VOI methods are only accurate when (1) all feasible comparators are included in the decision model when designing research, and (2) all comparators are retained in the decision model once the data have been collected and a final treatment recommendation is made. Omitting comparators from either the design or analysis phase of research when using VOI methods can lead to incorrect trial designs and/or treatment recommendations. Overall, we conclude that incorrectly specifying the health economic model by ignoring potential comparators can lead to misleading VOI results and potentially waste scarce research resources.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40273-024-01372-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:pharme:v:42:y:2024:i:5:d:10.1007_s40273-024-01372-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40273

DOI: 10.1007/s40273-024-01372-0

Access Statistics for this article

PharmacoEconomics is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson and Christopher I. Carswell

More articles in PharmacoEconomics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().