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What is the value of treating schizophrenia?
Citation
Carr, VJ and Lewin, TJ and Neil, AL, What is the value of treating schizophrenia?, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40, (11-12) pp. 963-971. ISSN 0004-8674 (2006) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2006 The Authors
DOI: doi:10.1080/j.1440-1614.2006.01919.x
Abstract
Method: Health utility gains derived for current and optimal treatments for schizophrenia, depression and anxiety disorders, potential societal preference weightings, and annual costs per treated case, are used to illustrate the magnitude of the impacts on relative cost-efficiency and societal welfare estimates. These estimates are based on costs per additional quality adjusted life year (QALY) and costs per additional S-QALY (i.e. QALYs adjusted for societal value of health gains) respectively.
Results: When broader societal preferences are ignored, current and optimal treatments for depression and anxiety are around 10 times more efficient than those for schizophrenia, but treatments for all three disorders appear to give rise to similar levels of societal welfare when weighting factors reflecting equity concerns are incorporated.
Conclusions: There is manifest inequality in health between individuals with schizophrenia and those with high prevalence mental disorders, even with optimal treatment. Schizophrenia is much more costly to treat but other factors require consideration. Inclusion of societal preferences should lead to more rational decision-making and improved societal welfare. In turn, greater effort needs to be given to the development and validation of appropriate weighting factors reflecting distributive preferences in mental health.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
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Keywords: | cost-effectiveness analysis, equity, resource allocation, schizophrenia, societal preference |
Research Division: | Health Sciences |
Research Group: | Health services and systems |
Research Field: | Mental health services |
Objective Division: | Health |
Objective Group: | Public health (excl. specific population health) |
Objective Field: | Mental health |
UTAS Author: | Neil, AL (Associate Professor Amanda Neil) |
ID Code: | 138430 |
Year Published: | 2006 |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 4 |
Deposited By: | Menzies Institute for Medical Research |
Deposited On: | 2020-04-07 |
Last Modified: | 2020-06-23 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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