Master in Health Economics and
Pharmacoeconomics
Term Paper
Study Guide
February, 2023
Academic supervisors:
Prof. Natàlia Pascual Argenté
Prof. Jaume Puig-Junoy
CONTENTS
1. Introduction and objectives ...................................................................................... 3
2. Contents ............................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 TOPIC ..................................................................................................................................... 4
2.2 ACCEPTED METHODS............................................................................................................. 4
2.3 APPROACH, DATA AND ANALYSIS ......................................................................................... 5
2.4 FORMAT AND EXTENSION ..................................................................................................... 6
2.5 ORIGINALITY OF THE WORK .................................................................................................. 6
2.6 AUTHORSHIP / CONFLICTS OF INTEREST ............................................................................... 7
3. Calendar ................................................................................................................................... 8
3.1 TOPIC PROPOSAL / 15th February to 14nd March ................................................................... 8
3.2 PROPOSAL ACCEPTANCE & TUTOR ASSIGNMENT/ 29rd March to 21st April ......................... 9
3.3 WRITING OF THE TERM PAPER AND SUBMISSION/ 22th April to 28th November................ 10
3.4 EVALUATION PERIOD & GRADES/ 13th to 19th December ................................................... 11
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1. Introduction and objectives
The Term Paper (TP) is a required activity to get the Master’s diploma in Health Economics
and Pharmacoeconomics. The weight of this course in the final assessment of the program is
proportional its number of credits (10 ECTS) within the whole program (60 ECTS).
This document contains the guidelines for the development of the TP, as well as the specific
timetable for its implementation and evaluation. The Annex includes complementary
information to help you prepare your TP.
Please read this document carefully and in detail before you start working on your TP, as well
as other specific guidelines referenced here (for example, to structure and write an original
study, a systematic review or an economic evaluation, to present statistical analysis, or to
write bibliographical references). Guidelines will be accessible from the eCampus. It is
common that TP proposals are sent back to students who fail to review and follow these
instructions due to major deficiencies, which leaves less time left to work on your TP.
The TP pursues the following objectives:
• To know the procedures of the application of the scientific method in the
identification of problems related to the management of health services and drugs, as
well as to learn to deal with their resolution using the tools developed in the different
subjects of the Master in Health Economics and Pharmacoeconomics.
• To encourage the integration of concepts, theories, observation methods and analysis
related to the study of the management of health services and drugs.
• To promote theoretical and applied research in Health Economics and
Pharmacoeconomics.
2. Contents
Each student will elaborate an original project containing elements of economic analysis
about a topic related to the contents of the Master program.
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2.1 TOPIC
The topic of the TP is freely chosen by each participant. For this reason, it is advisable to
choose a topic that is close to your personal and professional interests. This will guarantee
more in-depth knowledge of the problem and greater ability to analyse and discuss the results
of your research. Sometimes it is not easy to decide and define in detail the research problem
for your TP. If so, it can be useful to review the topics of the different units of the program
carefully as well as the bibliographical references available in the eCampus.
2.2 ACCEPTED METHODS
You can choose among the following methods to prepare your TP (no other type of studies
are accepted):
1. Economic evaluation: To conduct an economic evaluation of a drug or other health
technology (device, diagnostic test, innovative surgical intervention, program or strategy)
from primary data or, alternatively, replicating data and information appearing in a
published work and carried out elsewhere. Accepted economic evaluations include:
1.1. Cost minimization analysis
1.2. Cost-effectiveness analysis
1.3. Cost-utility analysis
1.4. Cost-benefit analysis
1.5. Budget impact analysis
1.6. Cost-of-illness analysis
In this type of studies the student must indicate the method of analysis in the TP proposal
(examples found in Courses 4 and 6 of the program). As has already been commented, on the
eCampus there are useful guides to elaborate this studies.
2. Systematic review of the literature: To conduct a systematic review of the literature must be
done on a relevant and original topic: it should never consist of repeating reviews that have
already been done, except the published ones are obsolete and can be updated. In addition
– and this is very important – they will always be carried out in the context of economic
evaluations or relevant topics in health economics. Systematic reviews in other contexts (e.g.,
exclusively clinical) will not be accepted. The systematic reviews of the evaluations of a drug
or medical technology, we insist, as long as they are original, must constitute a rigorous
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synthesis and update of what has been published to date and be accompanied by a critical
and in-depth analysis of the selected topic. To elaborate them, it is mandatory to follow the
PRISMA recommendations, which can be found on the eCampus.
Do not resort to conducting a systematic review as an alternative easy method (as is often
the case). Its evaluation by the tutor and the Coordination of the program team will be as
rigorous as those of the other two methods and special attention will be paid to compliance
with all the indicated requirements and PRISMA recommendations.
3. Empirical study: To conduct an empirical study limited to the field of health economics. Other
type of studies are not accepted. Empirical studies are quantitative analysis carried out with
primary data to find explanatory factors of some phenomenon that is related to the contents
of the program. In this case, the student must explain in the TP proposal what will be the
quantitative analysis method that will be used (examples found in Course 2 of the program).
It is important to point out that, when it is intended to work with primary data to which the
student believes they can access, they have the prior guarantee of being able to have the
permissions to use them. It is not uncommon that, in the end, whoever owns the data, denies
access to them, which has always meant a significant delay in the completion of the TP.
2.3 APPROACH, DATA AND ANALYSIS
The TP should not be a theoretical or conceptual work. Rather, it should include interesting
evidence analysed with a scientific method.
The structure of the TP must follow that of an original article, whether it is an economic
evaluation or a systematic review or an empirical study. Expanded information about the
structure and distribution of the contents is found in the Annex. Your TP must comply with
the current editorial standards of the majority of scientific journals in the area of medical
sciences that can be found on the recommendations from the International Commmittee of
Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The need to comply with these standards requires reading
the Annex carefully and complying with the requirements indicated therein, in the same way
that must be fulfilled when submitting a study for publication to a scientific journal.
If the work requires some statistical processing, its complexity will depend of the
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characteristics required by the hypotheses formulated and the analysis required to test them.
In any case, your contribution must be original and not a simple reproduction of the results
published by other authors. Likewise, statistical analysis performed and its results must
comply with the SAMP recommendations, which can be found on the eCampus.
2.4 FORMAT AND EXTENSION
• The front page must include the title and the author’s name. The title of the TP should
be short but expressive enough to reflect its content and analytical objectives.
• The second page will include the declaration of originality, authorship and
declaration of conflicts of interest and the abstract. An abstract of between 100 and
300 words structured according to the scientific standards of the Vancouver format,
prepared by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Again,
it is essential to review these guidelines.
• The document should be organized in sections covering the background of the topic,
the objectives of the work, the materials and methods of analysis used, the results
obtained and the discussion of these results.
• The pages should be numbered, with spacing 1.5 and Verdana (10) or similar.
Citations and reference listing should follow the Vancouver style (specific link of the
National Library of Medicine:
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).
• The document should have an extension of at least 3,000 words and no more than
5,000, excluding tables, figures, bibliographical references and the annex.
2.5 ORIGINALITY OF THE WORK
The research must be original and carried out for the Master, although may later be sent for
publication. In this sense, the TP cannot have been developed before the Master, either
individually or as a team. This concerns its design, data, results and, especially, their
interpretation and discussion. Results of previous work carried out by the author can be used,
but clear justification as well as evidence that the final result provides new contributions of a
substantial and non-trivial nature are required. In all cases, it is essential to explicitly identify
what the original contributions are and to highlight the added value of the research work.
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To breach the principle of originality (partial or complete plagiarism) is considered
internationally as inadequate ethical conduct in science (scientific misconduct) and is subject
to invalidation of work and academic sanction. Therefore, the direction of the Master
reserves the possibility of negatively evaluate an activity when its originality is compromised
after using plagiarism detection software.
2.6 AUTHORSHIP / CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The first page of the TP must include the following sentence:
“I formally declare that I have written the submitted piece of work independently. I did not
use any outside support except for the quoted literature and other sources mentioned in the
paper.”
If there are conflicts of interest, they have to be specified. Projects in which this statement
does not appear on the first page cannot be accepted.
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3. Calendar
The calendar of the TP is organized in the following phases.
Course 9. Term Paper Begining End
Getting familiar with the Term Paper guide 15/02/2023 14/03/2023
Topic proposal 15/03/2023 28/03/2023
Proposal acceptance and Tutor assignment 29/03/2023 21/04/2023
Consultation period 22/04/2023 28/11/2023
Submission: Term Paper & video 28/11/2023
Evaluation period: live defense and grades 29/11/2023 19/12/2023
3.1 TOPIC PROPOSAL / 15th February to 14nd March
In this phase, each student must present a TP proposal. This proposal will cover the sections
included in the 2-page specific template available in the eCampus. The completed document
must be submitted in the section “Topic proposal".
a) Title of the selected topic.
b) Method: you must indicate one of the accepted methods of section 2.2 of this
document.
c) General and specific objectives, as well as working hypotheses1.
d) Justification of the work: brief description of the background of the topic, existing
knowledge gaps, information needed, preliminary knowledge to be tested that justify
the work.
e) Material and analysis tools required. Indication of the needs to obtain data and
specific computer software to be used.
f) Work plan and calendar.
The proposal is not a provisional idea of what could be done as TP. It is a commitment to work
on the chosen topic. Changes of subject or method will not be accepted after the approval of
the proposal. For this reason, it is very important to prepare a good proposal: to make a prior
review of the bibliography that is sufficiently exhaustive, to formulate some achievable
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Take into account that when formulating objectives you often confuse the goal itself with what you are going
to do to achieve it. For example, objectives are often stated saying that "the objective of the study is to analyze"
or "compare" or "describe", when analyzing, comparing and describing are methods, not objectives, that are
carried out for any purpose. The objective is that purpose; something is analyzed or compared with a goal.
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objectives within the period granted to the TP, to propose a method of analysis that is
feasible, to know with what resources each student counts to do it and meet deadlines.
3.2 PROPOSAL ACCEPTANCE & TUTOR ASSIGNMENT/ 29rd March to 21st April
The academic supervisor of the TP will decide upon the proposal acceptance. If the proposal
is not accepted, a complete or partial revision will be indicated. In this case, a period of 2
weeks will be granted to submit a new proposal (it may be the same or a new topic). Then,
within the maximum period of another two weeks, the acceptance of the proposal will be
informed. The revision of the proposal will not extend beyond the TP submission period.
Once the proposal has been validated, any major change (i.e. topic and/or method) must be
agreed with the academic supervisor of the TP and the assigned tutor.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
• The qualification of the proposal will be interpreted as follows:
Qualification Proposal status Steps to follow
A new proposal must be presented considering the
0-4 Rejected
comments of the TP Coordination.
Check the comment of the TP Coordination about your
5 - 10 Accepted proposal. A tutor will be assigned following the TP
calendar.
• Failing to submit the proposal on the indicated deadline or classifying as rejected and
then re-submitting a revised proposal (grade less than 5), will imply that the maximum
grade that can be obtained in the proposal will be 6/10.
• If the revised version of the initial proposal is not accepted, the TP will be postponed
until the next edition of the program available for admission. Failure to submit a
proposal in the established period will have the same consequence.
After the acceptance of the proposal, the student will be assigned a tutor. Tutors are
collaborators of the Master and renowned professionals in their field. It is convenient that
you contact your tutor as soon as possible to start working on your TP.
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3.3 WRITING OF THE TERM PAPER AND SUBMISSION/ 22th April to 28th
November
During the consultation period you can contact your tutor for doubts and questions about
the development of the TP. The student has the responsibility to contact their tutor during
the first week of the consultation period.
An eCampus forum exclusive for you and your tutor will be available and it will be the main
and official communication channel. Other communication tools (e.g. private mail or Skype)
are optional and need to be agreed upon with your tutor in advance and will only be used in
a complementary way.
The function of the tutor is mainly to guide its development. The tutor will answer specific
questions during the consultation period. The tutor is not expected to read and review in
depth the final draft of the work, since this is part of the final assessment.
In the following table, you may find some examples to illustrate some of the main concerns
that may arise during the consultation period with regard to the tutor/student roles.
TUTOR
What is expected? What is not expected?
In relation to the learning process: • Excessive control, since her
• Facilitate an active learning process. function is to guide and make
• Transfer her knowledge and experience. the participant think so that
• Provide specific, immediate, frequent and motivating feedback. the participant can take
decisions by herself.
In relation to attitude:
• Offer active listening.
• Be open to receive questions and motivate discussion.
• Prepare proper answers to the questions asked by the participant.
• Keep absolute confidentiality on the issues addressed.
In relation to the student:
• Promote autonomy.
• Help specify the scope of the research topic so that it adjusts to the
scope and time foreseen for its completion.
• Help define goals and an appropriate work plan.
• Help find sources of information, as well as the most appropriate tools
for the development of the project.
STUDENT
What is expected? What is not expected?
In relation to the learning process: • Think that the tutor is the
• Be responsible for their academic development. project director.
• Be responsive when receiving feedback from the tutor.
• Progress on the development
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In relation to attitude: of the work only when being
• Be the driving force of the tutoring process. asked by the tutor.
• Have a proactive attitude by asking the tutor the questions you need to
design and advance your project.
• Be interested in the project you will develop.
• Maintain absolute confidentiality on the topics covered.
In relation to the tutor:
• Commit to communicate enough with the tutor and to show advances
on each consultation.
• Comply with the rules agreed with the tutor.
The delivery of the TP will consist of THREE parts:
1. Written document in PDF format to be uploaded in the eCampus section "Term Paper
submission". Name your file as "SURNAME_NAME_DATE.pdf".
2. Video with the defense of the TP (following the technical instructions provided in the
eCampus). This video must have a maximum duration of 10 minutes in which you
summarize the objectives of the work and the method of analysis. You should
highlight the main results and cover the main aspects of the discussion. Format
recommendations:
– Avoid using an excessive number of slides: better few and with clear messages.
– Avoid excessive wording and use scheme/ table as support.
– Make sure that images/tables/diagrams are readable.
– Use sans-serif font (Verdana or similar) with a minimum size of 18 points.
3. Synchronous defense of the TP on the Committee designated by the Academic
Direction: once the delivery of the PDF document of the TP and the recording
summary of the TP has been verified, a virtual synchronous defense (live) will be
scheduled. The Committee designated by the Academic Direction will ask the
corresponding questions to the student, who will defend his TP in the online meeting.
IMPORTANT NOTE: not delivering/carrying out ALL parts of the TP will result in a FAILING
grade in the completion of the TFM.
3.4 EVALUATION PERIOD & GRADES/ 13th to 19th December
Special attention will be given to aspects such as the interest of the subject, the adequate
formulation of the objectives and hypotheses, the appropriateness of the methods and the
use of data, the background of the topic, the clarity of results and discussion.
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In this period, the synchronous defense of the TP will be developed, as indicated in the
previous point, after communication from the Academic Direction via eCampus to schedule
the dates and times of the virtual defense meetings.
For the evaluation, the following criteria and weights will be considered to compute final
grade:
Criteria Weight in the final grade of
the TP (%)
Topic proposal (TP’s Coordination) 10
Evaluation rubric (Tutor and Committee) 90
The 90% of the evaluation rubric will be distributed as
follows:
1. Final document (50)
a. Originality 10
b. Method 10
c. Results and applicability 20
d. Format: presentation, structure and 10
coherence
2. Tutorization process: (20)
a. Personal effort 10
b. Calendar compliance 10
3. Video and defense of the TP 20
The TP will be evaluated by the TP’s Coordination (proposal), the tutor and the Committee
designated by the Academic Direction (evaluation rubric).
The TP receives a final grade between 0 and 10. Each student will receive the TP grade and
feedback comments through the eCampus “Qualifications” section.
When the TP receives an overall grade lower than 5 points (fail), all the objections made in
the evaluation will be communicated, as well as the recommendations for improvement of
the work. Then the student will have two weeks to incorporate changes, modifications and
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convenient amendments in a new version of the TP to be re-submitted. This new version of
the TP will be re-assessed and qualified taking into account the same criteria.
IMPORTANT NOTE: if this second delivery does not pass the minimum grade required, the
TP will be postponed until the next edition of the program available for admission. Failure
to submit any part of the Term Paper in the established period will have the same
consequence.
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