Economic Evaluation of Family-Focused Programs When Parents Have a Mental Health Problem: Methodological...

Area of Science:

• Child and adolescent mental health
• Health economics
• Public health

Background:

• Parental mental health problems significantly impact children's well-being.
• Economic evaluations are crucial for understanding the financial burden but lack specific methodological guidance.
• Adverse effects span individual and societal levels, necessitating comprehensive assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To understand the spectrum of adverse effects of parental mental health problems on children.
• To identify the individual and societal economic consequences.
• To guide the design of economic evaluation studies in this area.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of empirical studies on children's adverse effects from parental mental illness.
• Clustering of impact types and identification of individual and public cost consequences.
• Development of an impact inventory to illustrate findings.

Main Results:

• Identified a wide range of short- and long-term (mental) health impacts on children.
• Documented impacts on social functioning and socioeconomic implications for children.
• Recognized societal-level adverse effects and associated public/private costs across sectors like healthcare and education.

Conclusions:

• Existing economic evaluations often use standard methods and short timeframes, which are insufficient.
• Recommends a long-term time horizon (up to early adulthood) for evaluations.
• Suggests using cost-consequence analysis and alternative outcome measures beyond quality-adjusted life-years, capturing all public and private costs.