Cost-of-illness studies of diabetes mellitus in China : A systematic review / 中华内分泌代谢杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To undertake a systematic review of the economic burden of diabetes in China.Methods Published literatures about the medical cost and economic burden of diabetes in China were searched for analyzing the methodologies and results.Results Altogether 374 articles were identified in the literatures.Review of the articles resulted in the identification of 40 of these that met all criteria.Cost of illness studies and hospitalization expenditure per admission comprised the largest source of the studies.Cost of illness approach,calculations from the national survey's data and the matching method were adopted in most researches and led to variations of result.Conclusions Differences in research methods are the key determinants of variations of the result.Even the same method with different data sources,patient types or investigating spots still contributes to great variations.Without well-accepted standards to guide researchers in their execution of these studies,policymakers and the general publicmust be wary of the methods and data source used in their calculation and subsequent results.