Impact of treatment-related discussions on healthcare resource use and costs among patients with severe mental illness

Autor: Heidi C. Waters, Angela Belland, Felicia Forma, Carolyn Martin, John R. White, Eleena Koep
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Current medical research and opinion. 37(10)
ISSN: 1473-4877
Popis: Serious mental illnesses (SMIs), including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder (MDD), are often treated with antipsychotic medications. Unfortunately, medication non-adherence is widespread and is associated with serious adverse outcomes. However, little real-world data are available describing adherence, compliance, or other medication-taking-related discussions between providers and patients. This study described these communications in ambulatory care.Commercially insured patients having acute (emergency or inpatient) behavioral health (BH) events were included by specific criteria: age 18-65 years; diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or MDD; continuous health insurance coverage 6 months before to 12 months after the first claim (index) date during 01/01/2014‒12/31/2015; and prescribed antipsychotic medication. Medical charts were abstracted for ambulatory visits with a BH diagnosis through 12 months after the acute event, describing any treatment compliance discussions that occurred. BH-related healthcare utilization and costs were measuredNinety patients were included: 62% female, mean age 41 years. Only 58% had antipsychotic compliance discussions during the first abstracted ambulatory visit. A total of 680 BH-related visits were abstracted for the 90 patients. Providers frequently discussed any psychotropic medication use (97% of all visits abstracted); however, discussion of compliance with BH talk therapies was less common (49% of visits among patients with a first visit antipsychotic discussion and 23% without,Increasing the frequency of antipsychotic treatment-related adherence/compliance discussions may represent an opportunity to improve the quality of care for these vulnerable patients and reduce the overall economic burden associated with the treatment of SMI diagnosis.
Databáze: OpenAIRE