Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
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Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. · Aug 2005
Comparative StudyPharmacoeconomic evaluation of schizophrenia in Taiwan: model comparison of long-acting risperidone versus olanzapine versus depot haloperidol based on estimated costs.
Antipsychotics are the keystone in schizophrenia treatment. Although the benefits of the new generation of antipsychotics has been demonstrated over the last decade, the issues of patient compliance and higher purchasing price of atypical antipsychotics remain unresolved. Risperidone is the only atypical antipsychotic agent with long-acting formulation. ⋯ Sensitivity analysis was performed for drug cost-effectiveness and compliance improvement for using long-acting risperidone. The results showed that long-acting risperidone is more cost-effective than either olanzapine or depot haloperidol for treating schizophrenia patients whose conditions are stable and whose illness duration ranges from 1 to 5 years. The comparison model with the Kaplan-Meier decision tree may serve as an alternative to prospectively designed studies for cost-effectiveness of atypical antipsychotics.