TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards sustainable mental health promotion: Trial-based health-economic evaluation of a positive psychology intervention versus usual care
AU - Schotanus-Dijkstra, Marijke
AU - Drossaert, Constance H. C.
AU - Pieterse, Marcel E.
AU - Walburg, Jan A.
AU - Bohlmeijer, Ernst T.
AU - Smit, Filip
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Background: Mental well-being could be promoted and protected by positive psychology (PP) based interventions. Such interventions may be appealing for people at risk of anxiety and depressive disorders, but health-economic evaluations are scarce. The aim was to examine the cost-effectiveness of a PP intervention. Methods: Participants with suboptimal levels of mental well-being were randomly assigned to an email guided PP-intervention (n = 137) or a wait-list control group (n = 138) with access to usual care (UC). At baseline and 6 months follow-up, data were collected on health care costs. Outcomes of interest were flourishing mental health and treatment response on anxiety and depressive symptoms. Results: Bootstrapped mean incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were €2359 ($2899) for flourishing, €2959 ($3637) for anxiety and €2578 ($3168) for depression, suggesting appreciable health gains for low additional costs. At a willingness to pay ceiling of €10,000 ($12,290) for a treatment response, the probability that the intervention is deemed cost-effective ranged between 90 and 93%. Conclusions: The guided PP intervention appears to be a promising strategy as seen from both a public health and a health-economic perspective, especially when there is some willingness to pay. When the PP-intervention is scaled up, then outcome monitoring is recommended to better guarantee the longer term cost-effectiveness of the intervention.
AB - Background: Mental well-being could be promoted and protected by positive psychology (PP) based interventions. Such interventions may be appealing for people at risk of anxiety and depressive disorders, but health-economic evaluations are scarce. The aim was to examine the cost-effectiveness of a PP intervention. Methods: Participants with suboptimal levels of mental well-being were randomly assigned to an email guided PP-intervention (n = 137) or a wait-list control group (n = 138) with access to usual care (UC). At baseline and 6 months follow-up, data were collected on health care costs. Outcomes of interest were flourishing mental health and treatment response on anxiety and depressive symptoms. Results: Bootstrapped mean incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were €2359 ($2899) for flourishing, €2959 ($3637) for anxiety and €2578 ($3168) for depression, suggesting appreciable health gains for low additional costs. At a willingness to pay ceiling of €10,000 ($12,290) for a treatment response, the probability that the intervention is deemed cost-effective ranged between 90 and 93%. Conclusions: The guided PP intervention appears to be a promising strategy as seen from both a public health and a health-economic perspective, especially when there is some willingness to pay. When the PP-intervention is scaled up, then outcome monitoring is recommended to better guarantee the longer term cost-effectiveness of the intervention.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85052317385&origin=inward
UR - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30139332
U2 - 10.1186/s12888-018-1825-5
DO - 10.1186/s12888-018-1825-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 30139332
VL - 18
JO - BMC Psychiatry
JF - BMC Psychiatry
SN - 1471-244X
IS - 1
M1 - 265
ER -