Citation

Davies LM, Drummond MF. Br. J. Psychiatry Suppl. 1994; (25): 18-21.

Affiliation

Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Royal College of Psychiatrists)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

7865193

Abstract

The total direct cost of treating schizophrenia in the UK is 397 million pounds, or 1.6% of the total health care budget. Hospital-based and community-based residential care accounts for nearly three-quarters of these costs, while drugs account for only 5%. A conservative estimate of the indirect annual costs of lost production is in the region of 1.7 billion pounds. The heterogeneity of the disease and its outcome means that average treatment costs per person with schizophrenia should be treated with caution; 97% of direct costs are incurred by less than half the patients. Therefore, treatments which reduce the dependence and disability of those most severely affected by schizophrenia are likely to have a large effect on the total cost of the disease to society and may therefore be cost-effective, even though they appear expensive initially.

Language: en