Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of indicated preventive interventions for depression in adolescents : An application of health economics methods

Sammanfattning: Unipolar depressive disorders are commonly encountered conditions in clinical practice with about 25% reporting their first episode during adolescence. Longitudinal studies show adolescent depression to be associated with an increased risk of mental illness in adulthood, healthcare usage, poor educational outcomes, unemployment, and dependency on welfare recipiency. Therefore, adolescent depression contributes a high disease burden and impinges a considerable financial strain on society’s limited resources.Several preventive interventions have been developed to prevent adolescent depression. Of these interventions, group-based cognitive behavioural therapy (GB-CBT) indicated preventive interventions for depression are well studied and accepted. However, evaluations of their effectiveness and cost effectiveness have yielded conflicting and incomplete results mainly due to methodological limitations.Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis was to investigate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of GB-CBT indicated preventive interventions for depression in children and adolescents, and estimate the additional healthcare costs and welfare burden in early to mid-adulthood associated with adolescent depression.In study I, GB-CBT indicated preventive interventions for depression in children and adolescents were protective against developing a depressive disorder and also reduced depressive symptoms. The intervention relative effect was noted to decay over time. Study II revealed that adolescent depression was associated with considerable increased healthcare consumption in mid-adulthood compared to the non-depressed peers at a population level. This finding was more pronounced in females with persistent depressive disorder (PDD). Study III showed adolescent depression to be associated with all the forms of social transfer payments (welfare) especially in individuals with PDD and those with early comorbid psychopathologies.Study IV demonstrated that GB-CBT indicated preventive interventions for adolescent depression are not only effective but also have the potential to be cost-effective compared to leaving adolescents with subsyndromal depression unattended.Findings from studies II and III, emphasized the large financial burden to society in terms of additional healthcare costs and welfare expenditure associated with adolescent depression. Whereas, study I and IV bring forward the message that it is possible to change the course of subsyndromal depression by offering GB-CBT indicated preventive interventions to adolescents with subsyndromal depression. Such an initiative was not only cost-effective compared to not intervening, but also largely cost-saving. Therefore, GB-CBT indicated preventive interventions could be used as part of a stepped care program linking into more specialized care services. The results of this thesis will be useful in decision-making concerning the resource allocation related to adoption and implementation of such preventive measures.