Criteria  Yes  Proportion of studies fulfilled criteria
1. Is the study population clearly described?  [3–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–33–34–36–37–38–39–42–43–44–45–46–47–48–49–50–51–53–54]  87%
2. Are competing alternatives clearly described?  [3–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–43–44–45–46–47– 48–49–50–51–53–54]  97%
3. Is a well-defined research question posed in answerable form?  [3–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–43–44–45–46–47– 48–49–50–51–53–54]  97%
4. Is the economic study design appropriate to the stated objective?  [3–25–26–32–33–37–38–39–40–41–42–44–45–46–47–49–50–51]  63%
5. Is the chosen time horizon appropriate in order to include relevant costs and consequences?  [3–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–34–36–37–38–39–40–41–44–45–47–48–49–50–51–53–54]  90%
6. Is the actual perspective chosen appropriate?  [3–25–26–28–29–30–31–32–33–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–43–47–49–50–51–53–54]  80%
7. Are all important and relevant costs for each alternative identified?  [3–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–33–34–36–37–38–39–41–42–43–45–48–49–51–53–54]  60%
8. Are all costs measured appropriately in physical units?  [3–25–26–28–30–31–32–33–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–43–45––47– 48–49–50–51–53–54]  80%
9. Are costs valued appropriately?  [3–26–29–30–31–32–33–36–37–39–46–47–50–53–54]  83%
10. Are all important and relevant outcomes for each alternative identified?  [3–29–30–31–32–33–36–37–39–46–47–50–53–54]  53%
11. Are all outcomes measured appropriately?  [3–26–27–28–30–31–33–34–36–37–39–40–41–42–45–46–50–53–54]  67%
12. Are outcomes valued appropriately?  [3–26–28–29–30–31–32–33–36–37–39–40–41–42–45–46–47–50–53–54]  70%
13. Is an incremental analysis of costs and outcomes of alternatives performed?  [3–26–29–32–37–39–40–41–42–45–47–50–54]  43%
14. Are all future costs and outcomes discounted appropriately?  [3–26–27–28–29–31–32–33–36–38–39–40–41–42–43–45–47–48–49–50–53–54]  76%
15. Are all important variables, whose values are uncertain, appropriately subjected to sensitivity analysis?  [27–28–33–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–47–49–50–54]  50%
16. Do the conclusions follow from the data reported?  [3–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–34–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–43–44–45–46–47–48–49–50–51–53–54]  100%
17. Does the study discuss the generalizability of the results to other settings and patient/client groups?  [3–25–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–34–36–37–38–40–41–42–44–45–46–47–50–53–54]  80%
18. Does the article indicate that there is no potential conflict of interest of study researcher(s) and funder(s)?  [3–26–27–30–31–32–34–37–38–39–40–41–42–44–45–46–47–49–50–51–53–54]  73%
19. Are ethical and distributional issues discussed appropriately?  [3–27–30–31–33–35–36–37–44–46–53–54]  43%