Interventions:
The authors reported very few details of the interventions studied and did not explain why placebo was used as the comparator.
Effectiveness/benefits:
The effectiveness data were derived from three published studies. The authors did not report any details of these studies or the methods used to identify them. Consequently, it is not clear if the best available evidence was used.
Costs:
The authors did not report the perspective used in the analysis, thus it is not possible to determine whether all the relevant categories of cost were included in the analysis. The authors reported the sources of both the unit cost data and resource use data, which were derived from data sources from Singapore. However, the price year was not reported, which will hamper any future inflation exercises.
Analysis and results:
The analytical approach was not well reported, with the authors giving no details of the model structure used and only very brief details of the methods used. The results, however, were presented in full. The authors performed a series of one-way sensitivity analyses. Although this type of analysis goes some way towards addressing parameter uncertainty, a probabilistic sensitivity analysis would be a more thorough way of fully capturing parameter uncertainty. Overall, the level of reporting was limited, with the authors providing very brief outcome information. The authors acknowledged the main limitations of their analysis.
Concluding remarks:
The methodology of the study had limitations and, although the results were reported in detail, the methods were poorly reported. Given the lack of reporting and the study’s limitations, the conclusions should be considered with caution.