Cost or burden of illness studies for mental illnesses has helped define the magnitude of their negative effects on the household, community and national economy. Despite its many benefits, there is a paucity of these studies among Nigerians being managed for mental illnesses. This study was aimed at assessing the economic burden of mental illnesses and its effect on household purchasing power. The study was descriptive cross-sectional in design conducted among 284 out-patients with five categories of mental illnesses at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Aro recruited via a systematic sampling technique. Data collection was quantitative using a semi-structured interviewer-administered tool. Participants provided the actual direct costs and estimates of indirect costs incurred during their most recent inpatient admission and their first clinic visit after discharge. Parametric and non-parametric statistical tests were conducted on the direct and estimated indirect costs respectively after testing them for normality using the Q-Q plot with statistical significance determined at p<0.05. Almost 96% of respondents finance their healthcare costs by themselves or their family with >50% earning
Introduction: Improving mental health patients' lost work productivity (LWP) may improve their health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and thus reduce their risk for more morbidity and mortality. Methods:The study investigated the association between the LWP and HRQOL of 284 mental health follow-up patients at a neuro-psychiatric hospital in Nigeria. It was cross-sectional in design with data obtained quantitatively and analysed using the IBM SPSS version 20 at a significance level of p<0.05. Results:The higher the LWP scores, the worse their level of work productivity but the higher the HRQOL scores, the better their HRQOL. There was a significant relationship between the LWP and HRQOL as every unit improvement in a number of the LWP scales, showed a corresponding significant increase in a number of the patient's HRQOL domains for patients with schizophrenia or bipolar affective disorder. However, patients with depression or mental and behavioural disorders showed no such relationship. Conclusions:The lost work productivity scales and health-related quality of life domains' assessments can be used as monitoring tools by physicians to assess the level of improvement of their patients to treatment. Their roles as prognostic tools can be tested in further studies.
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