Abstract
BackgroundSchizophrenia is a severe form of mental illness which is associated with significant and long-lasting health, social and financial burdens.The aim of this project is to assess the efficiency of the antipsychotics used in Spain in reducing schizophrenia relapses under the Spanish Health System perspective.Material and methodsA decision-analytic model was developed to explore the relative cost-effectiveness of five antipsychotic medications, amisulpride, aripiprazole, olanzapine, paliperidone Extended-Release (ER) and risperidone, compared to haloperidol, over a 1-year treatment period among people living in Spain with schizophrenia. The transition probabilities for assessed therapies were obtained from the systemic review and meta-analysis performed by National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).ResultsPaliperidone ER was the option that yielded more quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained per patient (0.7573). In addition, paliperidone ER was the least costly strategy (€3,062), followed by risperidone (€3,194), haloperidol (€3,322), olanzapine (€3,893), amisulpride (€4,247) and aripiprazole (€4,712).In the incremental cost-effectiveness (ICE) analysis of the assessed antipsychotics compared to haloperidol, paliperidone ER and risperidone were dominant options. ICE ratios for other medications were €23,621/QALY gained, €91,584/QALY gained and €94,558/QALY gained for olanzapine, amisulpride and aripiprazole, respectively. Deterministic sensitivity analysis showed that risperidone is always dominant when compared to haloperidol. Paliperidone ER is also dominant apart from the exception of the scenario with a 20% decrease in the probability of relapses.ConclusionsOur findings may be of interest to clinicians and others interested in outcomes and cost of mental health services among patients with schizophrenia.Paliperidone ER and risperidone were shown to be dominant therapies compared to haloperidol in Spain. It is worthwhile to highlight that schizophrenia is a highly incapacitating disease and choosing the most appropriate drug and formulation for a particular patient is crucial.The availability of more accurate local epidemiological data on schizophrenia would allow a better adaptation of the model avoiding some of the assumptions taken in our work. Future research could be focused on this.
Highlights
Schizophrenia is a severe form of mental illness which is associated with significant and long-lasting health, social and financial burdens
In the incremental cost-effectiveness (ICE) analysis of the assessed antipsychotics compared to haloperidol, paliperidone ER and risperidone were dominant options
Our findings may be of interest to clinicians and others interested in outcomes and cost of mental health services among patients with schizophrenia
Summary
Schizophrenia is a severe form of mental illness which is associated with significant and long-lasting health, social and financial burdens. The aim of this project is to assess the efficiency of the antipsychotics used in Spain in reducing schizophrenia relapses under the Spanish Health System perspective. It is associated with significant and long-lasting health, social and financial burdens, for patients but According to WHO estimates, schizophrenia affects approximately 24 million people worldwide [4]. The most recent publications estimate that the median incidence of schizophrenia varies from 15.2 [5] to 20.0 per 100,000 population/year [6], it is higher in the 15-35 year-old age group (7 per 1,000 population) [7,8]. Available estimates from 1995 show that incidence of schizophrenia was 1.9 per 10,000 inhabitants per year for people between the ages of 15 and 54 years [10]
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