Analysis of EQ-5D Application in Health Economics Research in the Field of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Objective To investigate the current application of the EQ-5D in health economics research in the field of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM).Methods PubMed,Embase,CNKI,CBM and Wanfang databases were systematically searched.The clinical research literature in the field of TCM such as'Chinese medicine','tuina'and'acupuncture'containing EQ-5D analysis was included.The Excel spreadsheet was used for data extraction,and the extracted information including title,publication year,author,institution,country,conflicts of interest(declaration or involvement of enterprise),study type,participants,interventions,outcomes,research perspectives and measurement methods.The Quality of Health Economic Studies(QHES)was used to evaluate the methodological quality of the included literature.SPSS 18.0 software was used for descriptive analysis of the extracted data.Results A total of 52 articles were included,and the study design was mainly based on randomized controlled trials.The application of EQ-5D-5L was less than that of EQ-5D-3L.Most of the literature used utility value and quality-adjusted life years(QALYs)for cost-utility analysis(CUA).EQ-5D was widely used in the study of musculoskeletal diseases,and Chinese patent medicine and acupuncture were the most commonly used interventions.Chinese patent medicine was used in most systemic diseases,but it was mainly used in musculoskeletal system diseases,which was equivalent to the proportion of massage application.Acupuncture was the most widely used intervention in musculoskeletal diseases,followed by the application of pain diseases.According to the QHES evaluation criteria,the average score of the 37 articles with full text was 73.49.Among them,20 articles were of high quality,14 articles were of general quality,and 3 articles were of low quality.The quality of the research was generally acceptable,but there were problems such as unreasonable or unreported research time limit selection,research result interpretation,conflict of interest,research perspective,utility value and QALYs evaluation.No conflict of interest statement was made in all the studies involving enterprises.Conclusion The application of EQ-5D in the evaluation of health economics in TCM is less,and the quality of literature still needs to be improved.There is still much room for research and application of EQ-5D in this field.