Premium
The Economic Burden of PTSD in Northern Ireland
Author(s) -
Ferry Finola R.,
Brady Sharon E.,
Bunting Brendan P.,
Murphy Samuel D.,
Bolton David,
O'Neill Siobhan M.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.22008
Subject(s) - indirect costs , economic cost , unit (ring theory) , medical prescription , presenteeism , environmental health , total cost , medicine , population , wage , productivity , psychiatry , psychology , demography , economics , labour economics , economic growth , mathematics education , neoclassical economics , accounting , pharmacology , microeconomics , sociology
Abstract The objective of this study was to estimate the economic costs of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among the Northern Ireland (NI) adult population. The authors present a prevalence‐based, bottom‐up study based primarily on data from 1,986 participants in the Northern Ireland Study of Health and Stress (NISHS). Both direct costs of treatment and indirect costs of productivity losses were included. Units of service and medication resource use were obtained from the NISHS and combined with their relevant unit costs from the Personal Social Services Research Unit and Prescription Costs Analysis data for NI. Indirect costs included the costs of incapacity days due to PTSD and presenteeism costs, with gender‐specific wage rates used as the relevant unit costs. The total direct and indirect cost of PTSD in NI (2008) was £172,756,062. This figure is likely to be conservative due to the exclusion of a number of cost categories. Nevertheless, comparison of estimates of the burden of PTSD with the estimated cost of treating all adults with PTSD with the recommended treatments shows the potential for substantial economic gains to be made through extension and investment in effective evidence‐based treatments.