The costs and effectiveness of two psychosocial treatment programmes for personality disorder: a controlled study.

This paper examines the costs and cost-effectiveness of psychosocial treatment for personality disorder in a controlled study. Using well-validated cost and outcome measures three groups are compared: the One-Stage group (n=32) received 12 months of inpatient treatment; the Step-Down group (n=29) received 6 months of inpatient treatment followed by 12 months of outpatient therapy; and the control group of 47 people used routinely available services. Both specialist programmes were more effective than routine psychiatric services but more costly. Using an extended dominance approach the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio showed that achieving one extra person with clinically relevant outcomes required an investment in the Step-Down programme of around 3400 pound sterling over 18 months. Small sample sizes and non-random allocation to programmes are limitations of this study but the costs and effectiveness findings consistently point to advantages for the shorter residential programme followed by community-based psychotherapeutic support.

Residential versus community treatment of personality disorders: a comparative study of three treatment programs.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of three treatment models for personality disorder: 1) a long-term psychoanalytically oriented residential specialist program, 2) a phased "step-down" specialist psychosocial program that included a briefer residential stay and an outpatient component, and 3) a general community psychiatric model. METHOD: One hundred forty-three patients with a personality disorder diagnosis were allocated according to geographical criteria to the three treatment conditions. Outcome was prospectively evaluated at 6, 12, and 24 months through the use of a standardized battery of instruments that included measures of general symptom severity, social adaptation, assessment of mental health functioning, frequency of self-harm and suicide attempts, and rates and duration of hospital readmissions. RESULTS: By 24 months, patients in the step-down condition showed significant improvements on all measures. Patients in the long-term residential model showed significant improvements in symptom severity, social adaptation, and global functioning, while no changes were achieved in self-harm, attempted suicide, and readmission rates. Patients in the general psychiatric group showed no improvement on any variables except self-harm and hospital readmissions. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that for personality disorders, a specialist step-down program is more effective than both long-term residential treatment and general psychiatric treatment in the community. Replication is needed that includes a random allocation of patients to conditions to ensure that geographical factors did not account for the observed differences.

Health service use costs by personality disorder following specialist and nonspecialist treatment: a comparative study.

The impact of specialist psychosocial treatment on health service use costs by patients with personality disorder is not yet sufficiently documented. In this prospective study we compare patterns of health service costs by three groups of people with personality disorder treated in a hospital-based program (IPP), a step down program (SDP), and a general psychiatric program (GPP). Total service use costs at follow up, compared with intake costs, showed that significantly higher savings were achieved by SDP and IIP compared with GPP. Cost reductions in SDP were significantly greater than in IPP. Significant cost reductions were found between treatment programs in social worker and community psychiatric nursing and psychotherapy. The cost-effectiveness of the two specialist treatment programs was indicated by the significant association between total cost reduction and clinical outcome in GPP and IPP, but not in GPP. The effect of Major Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder on health service use alone and in combination was also investigated. The finding that Major Depression was found to be more significantly associated with higher health service use costs than Borderline Personality Disorder is discussed.