Health care costs and changes in subjective health-related quality of life among Finnish adolescents referred to secondary psychiatric out-patient services: a one-year follow-up study
, , , and | May 06, 2023
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: May 06, 2023
Page range: 34 - 43
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjcapp-2023-0004
Keywords
© 2023 Anne Rissanen et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Background
There has been growing interest in economic evidence regarding treatment of mental disorders.
Objective
The purpose of this one-year follow-up study was to evaluate the secondary health care costs and changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in three common adolescent psychiatric disorder groups. Further, HRQoL of patients was compared to that of population controls.
Methods
Twelve- to fourteen-year-old adolescents with behavioral and emotional disorders (n = 37), mood disorders (n = 35), and anxiety disorders (n = 34), completed the 16D HRQoL questionnaire when they entered the adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics (baseline) and at follow-up. The direct secondary health care costs were calculated using a clinical patient administration system. Population controls included 373 same-aged pupils from randomly selected 13 comprehensive schools.
Results
The direct secondary health care costs did not differ significantly between the three patient groups. However, in adolescents with mood disorders, this investment generated a significant and clinically important improvement in HRQoL, which was not observed in the other two patient groups.
Conclusions
The costs of health care alone do not necessarily reflect its quality.