Economics and Schizophrenia: The Real Cost

Abstract

The total direct cost of treating schizophrenia in the UK is £397 million, or 1.6% of the total health care budget. Hospital-based and community-based residential care accounts for nearly three-quarters of these costs, while drugs account for only 5%. A conservative estimate of the indirect annual costs of lost production is in the region of £1.7 billion. The heterogeneity of the disease and its outcome means that average treatment costs per person with schizophrenia should be treated with caution; 97% of direct costs are incurred by less than half the patients. Therefore, treatments which reduce the dependence and disability of those most severely affected by schizophrenia are likely to have a large effect on the total cost of the disease to society and may therefore be cost-effective, even though they appear expensive initially.