10-Year Trends in Healthcare Spending among Patients with Schizophrenia in Alberta, Canada

OBJECTIVES: Schizophrenia is characterized by high levels of disability often resulting in increased healthcare utilization and spending. With expanding healthcare costs across all healthcare sectors, there is a need to understand how healthcare spending has changed over time. We conducted a population-based study using administrative health data from Alberta, Canada, to describe changes in medical complexity and direct healthcare spending among patients with schizophrenia over a 10-year period.

METHODS: A serial cross-sectional study from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2017, was conducted to determine changes in demographic characteristics, medical complexity, and costs among all adults (18 years or older) with schizophrenia. Total healthcare spending and sector-specific costs attributable to hospitalizations, emergency department visits, practitioner billings, and prescriptions were calculated and compared over time.

RESULTS: Over the 10-year period the contact prevalence of patients with schizophrenia increased from 0.6% (n  =  16,183) to 1.0% (n  =  33,176) within the province. There was a marked change in medical complexity with the number of patients living with 3 or more comorbidities increasing from 33.0% to 47.3%. Direct annual healthcare costs increased 2-fold from 321 to 639 million CAD (493 million USD) with a 7-fold increase in medication expenditures over the 10-year time frame. As of 2017, spending on pharmaceutical treatment surpassed hospitalizations as the leading spending category in this population.

CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare spending among patients with schizophrenia continues to increase and may be partially attributable to growing rates of multimorbidity within this population. Although promising second-generation antipsychotic medications have entered the market, this has resulted in considerable changes in the distribution of healthcare spending over time. These findings will inform policy discussions around resource allocation and efforts to curb health spending while also improving care for patients with schizophrenia.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:67

Enthalten in:

Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie - 67(2022), 9 vom: 11. Sept., Seite 723-733

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Stewart, Andrew J [VerfasserIn]
Patten, Scott B [VerfasserIn]
Fiest, Kirsten M [VerfasserIn]
Williamson, Tyler S [VerfasserIn]
Wick, James P [VerfasserIn]
Ronksley, Paul E [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Comorbidity
Economic analysis
Health services research
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Schizophrenia

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 08.09.2022

Date Revised 10.09.2022

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1177/07067437221082885

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM337756384