IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0184268.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The direct healthcare costs associated with psychological distress and major depression: A population-based cohort study in Ontario, Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Chiu
  • Michael Lebenbaum
  • Joyce Cheng
  • Claire de Oliveira
  • Paul Kurdyak

Abstract

The objective of our study was to estimate direct healthcare costs incurred by a population-based sample of people with psychological distress or depression. We used the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey on Mental Health and Well Being and categorized individuals as having psychological distress using the Kessler-6, major depressive disorder (MDD) using DSM-IV criteria and a comparison group of participants without MDD or psychological distress. Costs in 2013 USD were estimated by linking individuals to health administrative databases and following them until March 31, 2013. Our sample consisted of 9,965 individuals, of whom 651 and 409 had psychological distress and MDD, respectively. Although the age-and-sex adjusted per-capita costs were similarly high among the psychologically distressed ($3,364, 95% CI: $2,791, $3,937) and those with MDD ($3,210, 95% CI: $2,413, $4,008) compared to the comparison group ($2,629, 95% CI: $2,312, $2,945), the population-wide excess costs for psychological distress ($441 million) were more than twice that for MDD ($210 million) as there was a greater number of people with psychological distress than depression. We found substantial healthcare costs associated with psychological distress and depression, suggesting that psychological distress and MDD have a high cost burden and there may be public health intervention opportunities to relieve distress. Further research examining how individuals with these conditions use the healthcare system may provide insight into the allocation of limited healthcare resources while maintaining high quality care.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Chiu & Michael Lebenbaum & Joyce Cheng & Claire de Oliveira & Paul Kurdyak, 2017. "The direct healthcare costs associated with psychological distress and major depression: A population-based cohort study in Ontario, Canada," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-13, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0184268
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184268
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0184268
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0184268&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0184268?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manning, Willard G. & Basu, Anirban & Mullahy, John, 2005. "Generalized modeling approaches to risk adjustment of skewed outcomes data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 465-488, May.
    2. Lasser, K.E. & Himmelstein, D.U. & Woolhandler, S., 2006. "Access to care, health status, and health disparities in the United States and Canada: Results of a Cross-National Population Based Survey," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(7), pages 1300-1307.
    3. Yuki Tomonaga & Josef Haettenschwiler & Martin Hatzinger & Edith Holsboer-Trachsler & Michael Rufer & Urs Hepp & Thomas Szucs, 2013. "The Economic Burden of Depression in Switzerland," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 237-250, March.
    4. Julie Donohue & Harold Pincus, 2007. "Reducing the Societal Burden of Depression," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 7-24, January.
    5. Manning, Willard G. & Mullahy, John, 2001. "Estimating log models: to transform or not to transform?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 461-494, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agata Łaszewska & Johannes Wancata & Rebecca Jahn & Judit Simon, 2020. "The excess economic burden of mental disorders: findings from a cross-sectional prevalence survey in Austria," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(7), pages 1075-1089, September.
    2. Adam J. Novic & Charrlotte Seib & Nicola W. Burton, 2022. "Longitudinal Association of Physical Activity, Mastery and Psychological Distress in Mid-Aged Adults over 9-Years," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-14, October.
    3. Jin, Yinzi & Zhu, Dawei & He, Ping, 2020. "Social causation or social selection? The longitudinal interrelationship between poverty and depressive symptoms in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sankar Mukhopadhyay & Wei Yang & Wai Lee & Jeanne Wendel, 2008. "Analyzing the impact of prenatal care on infant health: do we have useful input and output measures?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 9(22), pages 1-14.
    2. Jones, A.M, 2010. "Models For Health Care," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 10/01, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Caballer-Tarazona, Vicent & Guadalajara-Olmeda, Natividad & Vivas-Consuelo, David, 2019. "Predicting healthcare expenditure by multimorbidity groups," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(4), pages 427-434.
    4. Onur Başer & Joseph C. Gardiner & Cathy J. Bradley & Hüseyin Yüce & Charles Given, 2006. "Longitudinal analysis of censored medical cost data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(5), pages 513-525, May.
    5. Toni Mora & Joan Gil & Antoni Sicras-Mainar, 2012. "The Influence of BMI, Obesity and Overweight on Medical Costs: A Panel Data Approach," Working Papers 2012-08, FEDEA.
    6. Jean‐Paul Chaze, 2005. "Assessing household health expenditure with Box–Cox censoring models," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(9), pages 893-907, September.
    7. Keane, Michael & Stavrunova, Olena, 2016. "Adverse selection, moral hazard and the demand for Medigap insurance," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(1), pages 62-78.
    8. Tor Iversen & Eline Aas & Gunnar Rosenqvist & Unto Häkkinen & on behalf of the EuroHOPE study group, 2015. "Comparative Analysis of Treatment Costs in EUROHOPE," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(S2), pages 5-22, December.
    9. Toni Mora & Joan Gil & Antoni Sicras-Mainar, 2015. "The influence of obesity and overweight on medical costs: a panel data perspective," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(2), pages 161-173, March.
    10. Chee‐Ruey Hsieh & Xuezheng Qin, 2018. "Depression hurts, depression costs: The medical spending attributable to depression and depressive symptoms in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 525-544, March.
    11. Marcel Bilger & Willard G. Manning, 2015. "Measuring Overfitting In Nonlinear Models: A New Method And An Application To Health Expenditures," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 75-85, January.
    12. Manning, Willard G. & Basu, Anirban & Mullahy, John, 2005. "Generalized modeling approaches to risk adjustment of skewed outcomes data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 465-488, May.
    13. Dunn, Abe, 2016. "Health insurance and the demand for medical care: Instrumental variable estimates using health insurer claims data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 74-88.
    14. Kaushik Ghosh & Irina Bondarenko & Kassandra L Messer & Susan T Stewart & Trivellore Raghunathan & Allison B Rosen & David M Cutler, 2020. "Attributing medical spending to conditions: A comparison of methods," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, August.
    15. Kurt Lavetti & Thomas DeLeire & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2023. "How do low‐income enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces respond to cost‐sharing?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 90(1), pages 155-183, March.
    16. Amir Marashi & Shima Ghassem Pour & Vincy Li & Chris Rissel & Federico Girosi, 2019. "The association between physical activity and hospital payments for acute admissions in the Australian population aged 45 and over," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-16, June.
    17. Marcu, Mircea & Knapp, Caprice & Madden, Vanessa & Brown, David & Wang, Hua & Sloyer, Phyllis, 2014. "Effects of an Integrated Care System on Children with Special Health Care Needs' Medicaid Expenditures," Working Papers 2014-8, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    18. Stefano Calciolari & Aleksandra Torbica & Rosanna Tarricone, 2013. "Explaining the Health Costs Associated with Managing Intracranial Aneurysms in Italy," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 427-435, August.
    19. Liu, Lei & Conaway, Mark R. & Knaus, William A. & Bergin, James D., 2008. "A random effects four-part model, with application to correlated medical costs," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(9), pages 4458-4473, May.
    20. Møller Dahl, Christian & Planck Kongstad, Line, 2017. "The costs of acute readmissions to a different hospital – Does the effect vary across provider types?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 116-125.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0184268. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.