[Socioeconomic assessment of therapies--report of a methodological procedure]

In most cases, evaluations of treatments are restricted mainly to their clinical efficacy. With health resources becoming scarcer, cost-benefit-analyses assume greater significance in the assessment of therapies. The following article introduces a methodological concept for the assessment of costs and benefits in the treatment of mental deterioration. In this concept, data on clinical effectiveness were derived from an existing clinical long term trial. In addition, according to the characteristics of the patients included in the clinical trial, a new sample of similar patients was examined. A cross-sectional analysis was performed in order to measure resource utilization. The clinical trial and the cross-sectional analysis were then combined to assess the cost effectiveness of the treatment. For this purpose, the patients of both the clinical trial and the cross-sectional analysis were classified into groups according to severity of symptoms. The proportions of medically- and placebo-treated patients in the different severity groups were followed up during the long term trial. The costs of resource utilization of each severity group were calculated. Consequently, depending on the course of the illness, direct treatment costs for medical- and placebo-treated patients could be compared. The results show clear differences. Rehabilitation measures and emotional care are provided mainly for patients with moderate symptoms, whereas the services for patients with more severe symptoms concentrate on basic care, such as dressing and undressing, washing, feeding, etc.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)