Health Care Resource Utilization and Costs for Patients with Tardive Dyskinesia

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is an often-irreversible movement disorder affecting any part of the body. Patients experience debilitating symptoms that lower quality of life and increase mortality. Prolonged exposure to dopamine antagonists, which are frequently prescribed for psychiatric disorders as neuroleptic (antipsychotic) drugs, is a common cause of TD. The estimated prevalence of TD is 20%-50% among patients on antipsychotics, and the reported incidence of TD ranges from < 1% to 42%, depending on the antipsychotics studied. However, there are few real-world studies examining health care utilization and the economic burden of TD.

To assess health care utilization and costs in a sample of patients with TD from the commercially insured and Medicare supplemental U.S.

A retrospective analysis was conducted using Truven MarketScan Commercial and Medicare administrative claims data. Patients were included in the TD group if they had the first TD diagnosis (index date) between January 1, 2008, and September 30, 2014, with ≥ 1 inpatient or ≥ 2 outpatient nondiagnostic claims for TD (ICD-9-CM code 333.85). Patients without TD were randomly assigned an index date. Further inclusion criteria for all patients were ≥ 12 months of pre- and post-index medical and pharmacy continuous enrollment and no evidence of TD claims during the pre-index period. Patients with TD were directly matched to patients without TD within subgroups for schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and other psychiatric disorders and propensity matched on other demographic and clinical factors. Descriptive statistics on the incidence of resource utilization and costs of health care were reported.

Of 3,397 patients with TD, 834 met the selection criteria and were matched to 834 non-TD controls. Patients with TD generally had significantly greater utilization during the 12 months after TD diagnosis than in the 12 months before TD diagnosis. Their rates for health care utilization and costs were also substantially higher than for those without TD. During the post-TD-diagnosis time, inpatient admissions (55.5% vs. 26.1%; P < 0.001) and emergency room visits (61.5% vs. 50.6%; P < 0.001) occurred more for patients with TD than for patients without TD. Total health care costs were significantly greater for patients with TD than for those without TD ($54,656 vs. $28,777; P < 0.001).

Patients diagnosed with TD demonstrate significantly higher health care utilization and costs compared with non-TD patients.

This study was funded by Teva Pharmaceuticals (Petach Tikva, Israel). Truven Health Analytics, an IBM Watson Health Company, received payment from Teva Pharmaceuticals for the analysis in this study. Carroll is employed by Teva Pharmaceuticals and Irwin is employed by Truven Health Analytics, an IBM Watson Health Company.