Is the whole larger than the sum of its parts? Impact of missing data imputation in economic evaluation conducted alongside randomized controlled trials

Outcomes in economic evaluations, such as health utilities and costs, are products of multiple variables, often requiring complete item responses to questionnaires. Therefore, missing data are very common in cost-effectiveness analyses. Multiple imputations (MI) are predominately recommended and could be made either for individual items or at the aggregate level. We, therefore, aimed to assess the precision of both MI approaches (the item …