The economic impact of subthreshold and clinical childhood mental disorders

Mental disorders are common health problems associated with serious impairment and economic impact.

To estimate the costs of clinical and subthreshold mental disorders in a sample of Brazilian children.

The High Risk Cohort Study is a community study conducted in two major Brazilian cities. Subjects were 6-14 years old children being registered at school. From an initial pool of 9937 children, two subgroups were further investigated using a random-selection (n = 958) and high-risk group selection procedure (n = 1554), resulting in a sample of 2512 subjects. Mental disorder assessment was made using the Development and Well-Being Assessment. Costs for each child were estimated from the following components: mental health and social services use, school problems and parental loss of productivity.

Child subthreshold and clinical mental disorders showed lifetime mean total cost of $1750.9 and $3141.2, respectively. National lifetime cost estimate was $9.9 billion for subthreshold mental disorders and $11.6 billion for clinical mental disorders (values in US$ purchasing power parity).

This study provides evidence that child mental disorders have a great economic impact on society. There is an urgent need to plan an effective system of care with cost-effective programs of treatment and prevention to reduce economic burden.