Economic evaluation of intensive home treatment in comparison to care as usual alongside a randomised controlled trial

Background: There is a dearth of research on the cost-effectiveness of intensive home treatment (IHT), an alternative to psychiatric hospitalisation for patients experiencing psychiatric crises. We therefore present a health economic evaluation alongside a pre-randomised controlled trial of IHT compared to care as usual (CAU). Method: Patients were pre-randomised to IHT or CAU using a double-consent open-label Zelen design. For the cost-utility analysis, the EuroQol 5-dimensional instrument was used. The cost-effectiveness was assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Results: Data of 198 patients showed that each additional QALY gained from offering IHT instead of CAU was on average associated with an extra cost of <euro>48,003. There is a 38% likelihood that IHT will lead to more QALYs at lower costs compared to CAU. An improvement of one additional point on the BPRS by offering IHT instead of CAU was associated with an extra cost of <euro>19,203. There is a 38% likelihood that IHT will lead to higher BPRS score improvements at lower costs. Based on the NICE willingness-to-pay threshold of 30,000 pound (<euro>35,000) per QALY, IHT could potentially be considered cost-effective with a likelihood of 55-60% when viewed from a societal perspective, and > 75% from a health care perspective. Conclusions: IHT appears slightly more attractive in terms of cost-utility and cost-effectiveness than CAU, although differences in both costs and effects are small especially when viewed from the societal costs perspective. From the health care sector costs perspective, IHT has a higher probability of being cost-effective compared to CAU.