MEASURING RESOURCE USE IN ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS - DETERMINING THE SOCIAL COSTS OF MENTAL-ILLNESS

Concern over costs associated with mental disorders has led to an incr ease in the number of economic evaluations of treatment interventions; unfortunately, methods for measuring resource use have not kept pace with this concern. Although it is well-known that a significant propor tion of the costs associated with mental illness are for resources oth er than treatment, program evaluators and researchers often count only treatment costs in cost-effectiveness comparisons. Further, existing methods for measuring resource use are plagued by faulty assumptions a bout resource use, poor validity and reliability, and difficulties qua ntifying resource use. The authors discuss these problems and suggest five ways of improving measurement of nontreatment resources: clarifyi ng assumptions, using multiple data sources,flexible data collection s trategies, methods for improving the accuracy of recall, and an episod ic approach to measurement.