Introduction
As healthcare technology continues to expand, the cost of using
all effective clinical services exceeds available resources. Because
of the scarcity of resources, decisions regarding the implementation
of new services frequently need to be based on economic
analysis. Economic analysis is a set of formal, quantitative methods
used to compare 2 or more treatments, programmes, or
strategies with respect to their use of resources and their
expected outcomes.1 Economic evidence seeks to inform
resource allocation decisions at different levels, including
institutions (eg, hospitals) and regional or national governments.
Unfortunately, not all economic evidence is of high quality.
To identify scientifically sound evidence that can inform
nursing related resource allocation decisions, nurses need to
evaluate the research by answering the questions outlined in
Table 1. These questions will be discussed and illustrated with
examples of interest to nurses; then, the clinical scenario will be
addressed and a published economic evaluation will be
critiqued to further illustrate these points.