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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Healthcare costs associated with recognised and unrecognised depression in old age | | Author(s) | Melanie Luppa, Sven Heinrich, Matthias C Angermeyer |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 20, no 6, December 2008 |
| Pages | pp 1219-1229 |
| Keywords | Depression ; General practice ; Costs [care] ; Germany. |
| Annotation | Inadequate recognition of depression in old age in primary care and the consequences for individuals are now well reported, but little research has been undertaken on its impact on healthcare costs. It is not known whether these costs differ between GP recognised and unrecognised depressed individuals; and differ between these groups and non-depressed individuals. 451 primary care patients in Leipzig, Germany aged 75+ were interviewed face-to-face regarding depressive symptoms (Geriatric Depression Scale, GDS), chronic medical illness (Chronic Disease Score), resource utilization and healthcare costs (questionnaire of service utilization and costs). A general practitioner (GP) questionnaire was used to measure recognition of depression by GPs. Resource utilization was valued in monetary terms using 2004/2005 prices. 38 (60%) of the 63 depressed patients were not identified by the GPs. From a societal perspective, mean annual healthcare costs were Ç5,582 for unrecognised depressed and Ç4,722 for recognized depressed patients with no significant difference. Healthcare costs of recognised and unrecognised depressed exceeded the healthcare costs of non-depressed patients (Ç3,648) by 23% and 35% respectively (p < 0.05). Although mean annual healthcare costs for GP-unrecognised depressed patients exceed the costs of GP-recognised depressed patients in absolute numbers, differences were not found to be statistically significant. Both groups differ from non-depressed individuals regarding their healthcare costs. Results encourage further research into the effect of recognition on healthcare costs of depression in large-scale studies. |
| Accession Number | CPA-090825221 A |
| Classmark | ENR: L5: QDC: 767 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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