Sensitivity Analysis for Handling Uncertainty in an Economic Evaluation
Supon Limwattananon MPHM, PhD*
Affiliation : * Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand
To meet updated international standards, this paper revises the previous Thai guidelines for conducting sensitivity analyses as part of the decision analysis model for health technology assessment. It recommends both deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses to handle uncertainty of the model parameters, which are best represented graphically. Two new methodological issues are introduced-a threshold analysis of medicines’ unit prices for fulfilling the National Lists of Essential Medicines’ requirements and the expected value of information for delaying decision-making in contexts where there are high levels of uncertainty. Further research is recommended where parameter uncertainty is significant and where the cost of conducting the research is not prohibitive.
Keywords : Acceptability curve, Expected value of information, Sensitivity analysis, Threshold analysis, Tornado diagram
