Effects of social support and education on health care costs for patients with fibromyalgia

Objective. The rising costs of health care are of great concern, particular ly for the chronically ill. Interventions that promote health status and we ll being while teaching appropriate use of the health care system have led to cost savings among patients with osteoarthritis. We carried out social s upport and education interventions with patients with fibromyalgia (FM) and assessed the effect on health care costs, psychosocial variables, and heal th status. Methods. Participants were 600 patients with FM who were members of a healt h maintenance organization. They were randomly assigned to one of 2 experim ental groups (social support; social support and education) or to a no-trea tment control group. Assessments were conducted at baseline and following a one year intervention. Health care cost data were obtained directly from p articipants' medical records. Results. Results indicated significant reductions in all groups' costs of p rescriptions, laboratory tests, and visits to a nurse, nurse practitioner a nd/or physicians' assistant. All groups also showed improvements on variabl es assessing effect of FM, self-efficacy, depression, and knowledge of FM. The social support and education group was less helpless after one year tha n the other groups; differential changes for all other variables were not s ignificant. Conclusion. The study did not reveal differential changes in health care co sts among participants in the experimental and control groups. These findin gs emphasize the importance of using objective health care utilization data when calculating health care costs, as well as the value of including a no -treatment control group to prevent erroneous conclusions about treatment e fficacy.