Home-based versus hospital-based care for serious mental illness. Controlled cost-effectiveness study over four years.

BACKGROUND The Daily Living Programme (DLP) offered intensive home-based care with problem-centred case management for seriously mentally ill people facing crisis admission to the Maudsley Hospital, London. The cost-effectiveness of the DLP was examined over four years. METHOD A randomised controlled study examined cost-effectiveness of DLP versus standard in/out-patient hospital care over 20 months, followed by a randomised controlled withdrawal of half the DLP patients into standard care. Three patient groups were compared over 45 months: DLP throughout the period, DLP for 20 months followed by standard care, and standard care throughout. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted (the latter to standardise for possible inter-sample differences stemming from sample attrition and to explore sources of within-sample variation). RESULTS The DLP was more cost-effective than control care over months 1-20, and also over the full 45-month period, but the difference between groups may have disappeared by the end of month 45. CONCLUSIONS The reduction of the cost-effectiveness advantage for home-based care was perhaps partly due to the attenuation of DLP care, although sample attrition left some comparisons under-powered.