Care Trajectories of People With Mood Disorders in Quebec Using a Sequence Analysis Method.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare research
• Mental health services
• Chronic disease management

Background:

• Analysis of care trajectories is crucial for chronic diseases, especially under-recognized mental health conditions.
• Mood disorders have a high prevalence, necessitating better understanding of patient care pathways.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and describe the care trajectories of adults in Quebec with self-reported mood disorders.
• To understand the patterns of healthcare utilization among individuals with mood disorders.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the TorSaDE cohort, linking Canadian Community Health Surveys (CCHS) with Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) administrative data (1996-2016).
• Applied sequence analysis (SA) to 4421 Quebec adults reporting mood disorders over a 7-year follow-up period.

Main Results:

• Identified three distinct healthcare user groups: low users (n=2714), moderate users with diverse services (n=1120), and moderate users with high psychiatric service use (n=587).
• Average 7-year healthcare costs differed significantly across trajectories, from $94,434 (low users) to $230,899 (moderate users).

Conclusions:

• The burden of mood disorders is unevenly distributed, with a small group disproportionately using specialized care.
• Findings highlight patient heterogeneity, emphasizing the need for differentiated, profile-specific healthcare planning over uniform strategies.