PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Impact of depression on health care utilization and costs among multimorbid patients--from the MultiCare Cohort Study.

  • Jens-Oliver Bock,
  • Melanie Luppa,
  • Christian Brettschneider,
  • Steffi Riedel-Heller,
  • Horst Bickel,
  • Angela Fuchs,
  • Jochen Gensichen,
  • Wolfgang Maier,
  • Karola Mergenthal,
  • Ingmar Schäfer,
  • Gerhard Schön,
  • Siegfried Weyerer,
  • Birgitt Wiese,
  • Hendrik van den Bussche,
  • Martin Scherer,
  • Hans-Helmut König

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091973
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 3
p. e91973

Abstract

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ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to describe and analyze the effects of depression on health care utilization and costs in a sample of multimorbid elderly patients.MethodThis cross-sectional analysis used data of a prospective cohort study, consisting of 1,050 randomly selected multimorbid primary care patients aged 65 to 85 years. Depression was defined as a score of six points or more on the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). Subjects passed a geriatric assessment, including a questionnaire for health care utilization. The impact of depression on health care costs was analyzed using multiple linear regression models. A societal perspective was adopted.ResultsPrevalence of depression was 10.7%. Mean total costs per six-month period were €8,144 (95% CI: €6,199-€10,090) in patients with depression as compared to €3,137 (95% CI: €2,735-€3,538; pConclusionAmong multimorbid elderly patients, depression was associated with significantly higher health care utilization and costs. The effect of depression on costs was even greater than reported by previous studies conducted in less morbid patients.