Résumé
Objectives: adverse drug events (ADEs) are not only a safety and quality of care issue for patients, but also an economic issue with significant costs. There is a need to accurately quantify the costs of ADE. This review aimed to investigate the methods to calculate these costs at hospital, and the nature of costs considered in the evaluation.Methods: a systematic literature review was conducted to identify recent studies using methods for assessing the cost of ADEs on Medline, Web of Science and Google Scholar. Original articles published from 2017 to 2022 in English and French were included. Economic evaluations were included if they concerned inpatients.Results: from 127 studies screened, 20 studies were analysed. There was a high heterogeneity in nature of costs, methods used, values obtained, and time horizon chosen. A small number of studies considered non-medical (10%), indirect (20%) and opportunity costs (5%). Ten different methods for assessing cost of ADEs have been reported and nine studies did not detail how they obtained their values. Conclusions: the costs of ADEs are highly affected by the choice of the costing methods and economic perspective. Guidelines should be published by learned societies to help researchers harmonise analysis methods and have a consistent approach based on available costs and chosen perspective