Cost-Effectiveness of Clozapine Treatment for Patients with Refractory Schizophrenia

Lee, Hong Shick; Suh, Ho Suk; Kim, Chan Hyung; Song, Dong Ho; Kim, Jin Hak

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Although antipsychotic treatments are effective for schizophrenia, at least 25% of schizophrenic patients have little response to conventional neuroleptics. Although patients respond well to antipsychotics initially, they often result in heavy loss of costs and social burden due to the frequent relapse which often require intensive institutional care while the patients experience significant social and functional disabilities. Many studies have come out recently concerning the cost of schizophrenia and its cost-effectiveness in treatment. Clozapine has the risk of agranulocytosis and greater initial cost, however, it has been reported to be cost-effective for the treatment of refractory schizophrenia because of its highly effectiveness, in addition, it has reduced rehospitalization rates and hospital stays. The purpose of this retrospective study was to ascertain the cost-effectiveness of clozapine treatment for patients with refractory schizophrenia in Korea. METHOD: We studied 17 patients with refractory schizophrenia treated by clozapine over a two year period. The numbers of hospitalization, hospital stays two years before clozapine treatment, and two years after clozapine treatment were investigated. Direct costs of psychiatric hospitalization, outpatient treatment, and other costs were estimated. Data on patients' clinical characteristics, use of mental health services and information about the cost of treatments were collected from psychiatric hospitalization records, outpatient records and hospital administration records. Some of the patient data information before the introduction of clozapine treatment were gathered through direct interviews of their families. Therapeutic outcome measures included the Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score. RESULT: At the initial clozapine treatment, the mean age of subjects was 29 (+/- 7.9) years old. The mean duration of previous psychiatric treatment was 8 (+/- 3.0) years. Average total direct costs were reduced from \4,106,480 in the second pretreatment year to \2,338,427 in the second posttreatment year while the mean hospitalization costs, a percentage of total direct costs, were reduced from 82.9% to 27.4%. Also, the mean hospital stays per year were decreased from 83.4 days to 15.7 days, the mean numbers of hospitalization from 0.59 to 0.18. CGI scale scores and GAF scores showed a statistically significant clinical improvement between before and after clozapine treatment.
CONCLUSION
These results suggest that a long-term treatment of clozapine for patients with refractory schizophrenia is indeed more cost-effective than conventional neuroleptic treatment. We suggest more comprehensive and prospective study due to the limitations of this retrospective study.