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Cost-effectiveness of current and optimal treatment for schizophrenia

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

HELEN LAPSLEY, MEc

School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Correspondence: Professor Gavin Andrews, Clinical Research Unit for Anxiety and Depression, 299 Forbes St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010, Australia. Fax +612 9332 4316; e-mail: gavina{at}crufad.unsw.edu.au

Declaration of interest None.

See editorial, pp. 375–376, and invited commentary, p. 436, this issue.

Background This paper is part of a project to identify the proportion of the burden of each mental disorder averted by current and optimalinterventions, 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 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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How much of the burden of schizophrenia is alleviated by treatment?

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BJP 2003 183: 375-376. [Full Text]  

Invited commentary on: Cost-effectiveness of current and optimal treatment for schizophrenia

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BJP 2003 183: 436. [Full Text]  

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