The Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Community Rehabilitation Center

De-institutionalization has been the central concept for mental health care worldwide in recent years. Returning patients from institution to the community may preserve basic human right for the mentally ill, enhance the rehabilitation process, regain quality of life and independent living, reduce family caregiver burden, and avoid the immense health expenditures for keeping them in institutions. Therefore, community rehabilitation settings are integral component of mental health care. However, the development of community-base rehabilitation services for mental health care in Taiwan has been lagging behind those of institutional ones. The relationship between costs and effectiveness for community-based rehabilitation for mental health care need to be established. Taking schizophrenia and affective disorder patients as the subjects, the study aims to explore the effectiveness, costs and effectiveness to cost ratio for patients receiving post-acute care in different settings: hospital clinics, day hospitals, and community psychiatric rehabilitation centers. Data will be collected by self-devised questionnaires through interviewers from patients at five stages: initial intake, one, two, three and six months after the initial intake. The questionnaire will include information for patient characteristics, mental disorder evaluation, activities of daily living, social and work function, as well as resources consumption for health care services. Descriptive analysis, univariate and multivariate analysis will be employed to analyze the costs, effectiveness, and effectiveness to cost ratio for patient under different settings of rehabilitation services. Policy implications will ensue from the results of the study

Project ID:PG9202-0356
External Project ID:DOH92-TD-1029