Economic evaluations are a growing field of interest in the rehabilitation area. Research has questioned the quality of reporting of health economic evaluations. Poor reporting hinders the ability to provide accurate information for health care decision making. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to document on overall reporting quality of the published literature for rehabilitation economic evaluations; to identify if reporting quality has improved in health economic evaluations within the field of rehabilitation therapy since the publication of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS); and to identify factors that could influence the reporting trends.

We searched databases for economical evaluations performed in the rehabilitation area published between 2013 and 2018. Study selection was performed by two independent reviewers using Covidence software. Data extraction was conducted by one reviewer using Microsoft Excel and independently verified by another reviewer. The quality of reporting was evaluated independently by two reviewers using the CHEERS checklist.

The search of the literature resulted in a total of 2195 published articles. Of these, 117 were considered to be potentially relevant. Independent review of these 117 articles led to the inclusion of 88 articles. This study is ongoing and complete results will be presented at the conference. Fifty papers have been analyzed in full. In general, the quality of reporting of the economical evaluations in the rehabilitation field was poor. The total mean and median for the CHEERS checklist was 17 points (out of 25) (range 8-24). Most of the analyzed studies did not report important methodological features of the economical evaluation as evaluated by the CHEERS checklist.

The quality of reporting of economic evaluations in the rehabilitation field is poor and inconsistent. Commonly the methods of the analyzed studies are under reported, thereby creating challenges in determining whether the information presented is sound.