Evaluating cost-effectiveness in mental health care

Cost-effectiveness and mental health

Issues in cost effectiveness in health care.

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is becoming increasingly popular as society moves toward rationalizing health costs. This review describes the applications and limitations of the technique. Conceptually simple though frequently complicated in application, CEA compares the cost of a procedure with its effectiveness, thus helping an administrator to judge whether the procedure is worth its cost...

Cost-effectiveness of health promotion targeting physical activity and healthy eating in mental health care

BACKGROUND There is a higher prevalence of obesity in individuals with mental disorders compared to the general population. The results of several studies suggested that weight reduction in this population is possible following psycho-educational and/or behavioural weight management interventions. Evidence of the effectiveness alone is however inadequate for policy making. The aim of the curren...

Cost-effectiveness analysis in health care.

With the skyrocketing costs of modern health care, many health policy planners turn to cost effective analysis (CEA) or cost benefit analysis (CBA) to get quantitative answers for appropriateness of health procedures. This article analyzes how well approaches like CEA or CBA handle the hidden ethical judgements for such problems as: alternative treatments for an identical goal, the most effec...

Ethical issues of cost effectiveness analysis and guideline setting in mental health care.

This article discusses ethical issues which are raised as a result of the introduction of economic evidence in mental health care in order to rationalise clinical practice. Cost effectiveness studies and guidelines based on such studies are often seen as impartial, neutral instruments which try to reduce the influence of non-scientific factors. However, such rationalising instruments often hide...