Economic Analysis of Psychosocial Group Therapy in Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer

Abstract

Psychosocial intervention, in the form of supportive-expressive group support for metastatic breast cancer, does not lower health care system resource utilization.

Effectiveness of Multidimensional Cancer Survivor Rehabilitation and Cost-Effectiveness of Cancer Rehabilitation in General: A Systematic Review

“…For outcomes for which no significant effect was established, usual care and doing nothing were the most cost-effective strategies. The CMA did not find a significant difference in costs [50].…”

“…Three articles were cost-effectiveness analyses (CEA), one was a combined CEA and cost-utility analysis, one was a cost-utility analysis, and one contained both a cost-minimization analysis (CMA) and a CEA. Four articles adopted a societal perspective [48,49,51,53], one used a health care system perspective [50], and one used a hospital perspective [52]. Analyses were based on multicenter RCTs [49 -51, 53], a quasiexperimental design [48], and modeling [52].…”

“…The included patients were breast cancer patients [48 -51], breast, colon, or cervical cancer patients [53], and head and neck cancer patients [52]. The effectiveness outcomes measured in the articles were, in these combinations, the number of rehabilitated cases and qualityadjusted life years (QALYs) [48], distress and energy [51], mood and pain [50], fear of regression and QALYs [53], and QALYs [49,52]. Significant benefits over the control group were found for QALYs [48,52,53], energy [51], fear of regression [53], and mood and pain [50].…”

“…The effectiveness outcomes measured in the articles were, in these combinations, the number of rehabilitated cases and qualityadjusted life years (QALYs) [48], distress and energy [51], mood and pain [50], fear of regression and QALYs [53], and QALYs [49,52]. Significant benefits over the control group were found for QALYs [48,52,53], energy [51], fear of regression [53], and mood and pain [50]. The costs of the interventions were in the range of €19, for a videotape intervention [41], to €793, for a group-based exercise and psychosocial intervention [48].…”

“…Also, four articles assessed the costeffectiveness of interventions that have not been shown or have only partly been shown to be effective [48 -51]. Finally, two articles did not include all relevant costs and effects [50,51] and three articles did not cover all relevant viewpoints [51][52][53].…”