[Patient education about neuroleptic treatment, can it reduce costs? A pilot study]

Costs generated by chronically mentally ill are very high. Concerning direct costs (hospitalisations, outpatient services, medications), they are estimated from 120,000 to 160,000 french francs per year. Indirect costs (social security, gain lost) are assessed as being at least three times more than direct costs. Trimestrial costs, charged to insurance, of the first fourteen patients who followed the UCLA medication management module, have been retrospectively calculated on the base of the number of consultations, days at the hospital and community day center during the previous and following year of the introduction of the program. The intervention lasts 3 months with two weekly sessions of 1 h 30. The medication module aims the following goals: 1) Obtaining information about antipsychotic medication; 2) Knowing correct self-administration and evaluation of medication; 3) Identifying side effects of medication; and 4) Negotiating medication issues with health-care providers. The mean trimestrial costs curve goes down following the application of the program and this reduction continues 9 months after the end of the intervention. The small numbers of patients and the absence of control group do not allow to draw conclusions about these results. However, these data provide support to formulate an hypothesis about the effect of the module on medication compliance.