Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment: Protocol for a Systematic Review of Economic Evaluations

TL;DR

This paper outlines a systematic review protocol to assess whether Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment is cost-effective in various healthcare settings for older adults.

Contribution

The study introduces a structured protocol for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of CGA across different care environments.

Findings

The review will analyze full economic evaluation studies on CGA from multiple databases.

Narrative summaries will present study characteristics and outcomes like costs and effectiveness.

The review will use the CHEERS-2022 checklist to assess reporting quality.

Abstract

Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is a multidimensional interdisciplinary diagnostic process focused on determining an older person's medical, psychological, and functional capabilities to inform a coordinated and integrated health plan. It is a multifactorial intervention requiring longitudinal planning and care coordination, which can utilize variable healthcare resources and have difference health outcomes. This systematic review aims to identify evidence of the cost-effectiveness of CGA in various care settings.

Full economic evaluation studies on CGA will be searched for in the Embase, Medline, CINAHL, CEA registry, and NHSEED databases. Two independent reviewers will screen the studies against the eligibility criteria and extract data using a pretested extraction form. We will include either randomized control trials or model-based economic evaluations, and the outcomes will include the mean costs and effectiveness, incremental cost, and incremental effectiveness. Reporting quality will be assessed using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS-2022) checklist. Narrative summary tables and figures will be used to present the study characteristics.

Ethics approval is not required for this systematic review because we will only utilize publicly available economic evaluation studies rather than individual patient data. The findings of this review will be presented at national and international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.

PROSPERO registration no.: CRD42023492586.

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