Cost-effectiveness of current and optimal treatment for schizophrenia.

Br J Psychiatry

World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Evidence for Mental Health Policy, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia.

Published: November 2003

Background: This paper is part of a project to identify the proportion of the burden of each mental disorder averted by current and optimal interventions, and the cost-effectiveness of both.

Aims: To use epidemiological data on schizophrenia to model the cost-effectiveness of current and optimal treatment.

Method: Calculate the burden of schizophrenia in the years lived with disability (YLD) component of disability-adjusted life-years lost, the proportion averted by current interventions, the proportion that could be averted by optimal treatment and the cost-effectiveness of both.

Results: Current interventions avert some 13% of the burden, whereas 22% could be averted by optimal treatment. Current interventions cost about AUS 200,000 dollars per YLD averted, whereas optimal treatment at a similar cost could increase the number of YLDs averted by two-thirds. Even so, the majority of the burden of schizophrenia remains unavertable.

Conclusions: Optimal treatment is affordable within the present budget and should be implemented.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.183.5.427DOI Listing

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