Several Dutch researchers recently published an article in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica comparing the cost-effectiveness of different treatment options for panic disorder.
The researchers split 150 participants into 3 groups: those treated with cognitive behavioural therapy, those treated with one of 5 selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, citalopram, and fluvoxamine), and those using a combination of CBT therapy and SSRIs.
Participants were assed 5 times during the study period: before starting treatment, after 9 months of treatment, at treatment endpoint, 6 months after treatment termination, and 12 months after treatment termination. Researchers measured the direct medical costs and the direct and indirect non-medical costs of each participants treatment, as well as the health outcomes of the treatment.
What the researchers discovered was that CBT alone had lower total societal costs than SSRI treatment or even treatment that combined CBT and SSRIs when compared with the health outcomes of those using those therapies.
While Truehope doesn’t offer cognitive behavioural therapy as a service, this touches on an earlier blog post that Truehope products may be more cost-effective than traditional psychiatric medication.
This raises an interesting question: if there are solutions available that have a better cost–outcome relationship than SSRIs, why are SSRIs still popular as a treatment option?