Economic Evaluation of Pharmacy Services: Review of Studies From Asia, Africa, and South America

Abstract

This review aims to explore the types of economic evaluation used to evaluate the pharmacy services in developing countries. It aimed to assess and summarize original studies of the economic impact of clinical pharmacy services in the hospital and community pharmacy settings. This chapter focuses on studies in around 102 developing countries setting, i.e., Latin (South) America, Africa, Middle East (part of the Western Asia), and other Asia regions (East Asia and Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, South Asia). The hospital and community pharmacy-based studies were critically evaluated through a mix of quasi-systematic review and systematic search methods, in which health economic evaluation tools were applied on pharmacy interventions. Literature search was done through searching various databases. Titles were extracted, abstracts were reviewed, relevant abstracts were further screened for full-text articles, and at the end each article was critically analyzed. Data and information were presented descriptively based on the qualitative approach taken when evaluating each article. Articles, which were screened, published between 1990s and 2015. The review of literature for this 25-year period shows that the full economic evaluation or pharmacoeconomic studies in the studied regions are very few. Though the numbers of published studies have increased in the recent past, however the proportion is too low or none in some countries.