Almeida RT, Freire SM, Panerai RB; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.
Abstr Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1992; 16.
Programma de Engenharia Biomedica, CUPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
The possibility of referring to medical literature to support technology assessments in perinatal care was studied by examining more than 40,000 references contained in the Index Medicus of Latin America (IMLA) in the period 1984/1988. A total of 1,074 references dealing with perinatal technologies was identified, of which 666 had abstracts. A sample of 104 papers was selected for detailed analysis in order to classify it in relation to the methodology adopted and to assess information concerning to the perspective of health technology assessment (HTA). In a previous study perinatal care was characterized by 325 technologies. From this group, 154 (47.4%) were not mentioned in the references surveyed. Fifty-two (16%) were the object of a single study in the same period. On the other extreme, 123 papers dealt with a single technology: ultrasound imaging. Of the 666 abstracts, it was found that 537 (80.6%) dealt with general applications of the technology, rather than specific aspects of interest to HTA. Only 58 articles (8.7%) contained information on effectiveness, 146 (21.9%) assessed safety, risks, or complications, 10 (1.5%) addressed social impacts, and 14 (2.1%) considered education and training of specific technology. Only one paper mentioned the problem of costs of perinatal care technology. The 104 selected papers contained 67 (64.6%) structured research designs, 26 (23%) descriptive review papers, and 11 (10.6%) case reports. Of the 67 structured studies, 61 (91%) are of the observational type and 47 (70%) had a cross-sectional design. In only 25 (37.3%) the authors described the population studied and in 18 (26.8%) they do not specify the source of data. Of the 17 studies which did have a control group, only 5 (29.4%) were considered adequate. In the 104 papers, only 7 assessed effectiveness and safety simultaneously, 12 evaluated only effectiveness, and other 6 assessed only safety and risks. These findings lead to the conclusion that the Latin-American literature is currently of very little use to HTA, and raise considerable concerns about the future of HTA in the region, since it can be expected that many other areas of health care present a similar pattern. This work was supported by the Pan American Health Organization.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Delivery of Health Care
- Latin America
- Research Design
- Technology Assessment, Biomedical
- methods
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102211863
From Meeting Abstracts