SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 12: Finding and using research evidence about resource use and costs

Table 4 Example: Assessing the quality of evidence for resource consequences. The quality of the evidence for the estimates of difference in resource use between a programme of outreach visits (targeted at all general practitioners in Norway) and no programme (the status quo) varied. (See also Tables 1 and 3.)

Resources	Data sources
Development of software	High quality
Training of outreach visitors	High quality
Printed materials	High quality
Travel	Moderate quality*
Pharmacists' time	Moderate quality*
Administrative time	High quality
Physicians' time	Moderate quality*
Technical support	High quality
Drug expenditure	Moderate to low quality^†
Patient visits	Moderate to low quality^†
Laboratory test (potassium)	Moderate to low quality^†

* The evidence for travel, pharmacists' time and physician time was of moderate quality. This was because of uncertainty about the extrapolation of data from practices in the trial to the rest of the country
^† The evidence for drug expenditures, patient visits and laboratory tests was of moderate to low quality. This was because of uncertainty about the extrapolation of data from the trial to the rest of the country and, in addition, because of extrapolation beyond one year (the duration of the trial) to estimate the resource consequences over several years for a programme targeted at all general practitioners in the country

ISSN: 1478-4505