Should the governance of individual treatment attempts (“Individuelle Heilversuche”) include praxis evaluation? Results from qualitative stakeholder interviews.
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Individual treatment attempts (ITAs) are a German concept for the treatment of individual patients by physicians with nonstandard therapeutic approaches. Due to the lack of evidence, ITAs come with a high amount of uncertainty regarding the risk-benefit ratio. Despite the high uncertainty, no prospective review and no systematic retrospective evaluation of ITAs are required in Germany. Our objective was to explore stakeholders’ attitudes toward the retrospective evaluation (monitoring) or prospective evaluation (review) of ITAs. We conducted a qualitative interview study among relevant stakeholder groups. We used the SWOT framework to represent the stakeholders’ attitudes. We applied content analysis to the recorded and transcribed interviews in MAXQDA. Twenty interviewees participated and pointed to several arguments in favor of the retrospective evaluation of ITAs (e.g. knowledge gain about circumstances of ITAs). The interviewees expressed concerns regarding the validity and practical relevance of the evaluation results. The viewpoints on review addressed several contextual factors. The current situation with a complete lack of evaluation insufficiently reflects safety concerns. German health policy decision makers should be more explicit about where and why evaluation is needed. Prospective and retrospective evaluations should be piloted in areas of ITAs with a particularly high uncertainty.
Source: Health Policy
Authors: Alice Faust, Lena Woydack, Daniel Strech
Language: English
Subfield: Physiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,720
Funder: Berlin Institute of Health
OpenAlex ID: W4321202932