The Health Economic Impact of Resource use in Dementia: the Erlanger Dementia Registry (EDR)

Abstract

Objectives: Estimating resource use [RU] in real life is an important part of health economic evaluations. RU data should reflect how patients are actually treated. In MDD, RU data are mostly obtained from expert opinion. Variability in RU may lead to uncertainty in health economic evaluations, but few published studies report these data in the detail needed. The present analysis reports RU data by depression health state from an observational study. MethOds: PERFORM (Prospective Epidemiological Research on Functioning Outcomes Related to Major depressive disorder) is a 2-year prospective observational study conducted in 5 Western-European countries. Two-and six-month RU were estimated by health state: remitters, non-remitters, patients in relapse or not. RU included visits to different health care professionals, hospitalization and sick leave. Results are reported for the whole study population and are also available by country (including the UK, for which EQ5-D-derived utilities are also available) and for subgroups (e. g., patients who switched antidepressants at baseline). Results: Of the 819 analysable patients at 2 months, 29% were in remission. Among patients with at least one visit, the frequency of visits to general practitioners, psychiatrists and psychotherapists was consistently lower for remitters versus non-remitters (1.8 vs. 2.4, 2.2 vs. 2.4 and 2.6 vs. 3.1 respectively). Fourteen patients had at least one hospitalisation. Sick leave was less frequent (14% vs. 27%) and shorter (34 vs. 41 days) for remitters versus non-remitters respectively. At 6 months, 19.3% of patients relapsed. RU were higher with more visits to psychiatrists, psychotherapists (4.0 vs. 2.7, 7.8 vs. 5.5) for relapsed versus non-relapsed patients. cOnclusiOns: This first analysis provides European RU data in MDD. More information is expected at completion of the two-year follow-up and this study offers the possibility to describe RU by health states, countries and subgroups and assess their transferability to other countries.