Economic impact of antidepressant treatment duration in naturalistic conditions
(2013) Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica — Vol. 127, n° 5, p. 365-372 (2013)
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- Abstract
- OBJECTIVE: To assess the economic impact of the duration of antidepressant drug treatment in a real-life setting. METHOD: A historical fixed cohort study included 27 917 patients aged 18 and over with a new antidepressant treatment registered in the national insurance database. The economic impact concerned healthcare expenditure in the first 3 months after treatment discontinuation. Generalized linear models were used to compare two groups of treatment duration: <6 months and 6 months and over. RESULTS: After adjustment for care costs before and during treatment episode, gender, age, chronic diseases, welfare and prescriber specialty, total healthcare costs (in log) [-0.06 (-0.14;0.01) P = 0.11] and psychiatric care costs (in square root) [-0.08 (-0.41;0.25) P = 0.6] were similar in both groups. Non-psychiatric care costs were significantly lower in the 'long treatment duration' group compared with the 'short treatment duration' group [-11.4 (-15.8; -7.0) P < 0.0001]. The decreases in total and non-psychiatric care costs over the antidepressant treatment episode were larger in the 'long treatment duration' group compared with the 'short treatment duration' group. CONCLUSION: With regard to healthcare costs and global health, antidepressant drug treatments of short duration appear less effective than treatment of recommended duration.
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Tournier, M., Crott, R., Gaudron, Y., & Verdoux, H. (2013). Economic impact of antidepressant treatment duration in naturalistic conditions. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 127(5), 365-372. https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.12035 (Original work published 2013)