How to include informal care in economic evaluations

An analysis of financial hardship faced by patients with First Episode Psychosis, and their families, in an Indian setting

BACKGROUND

The economic burden of psychotic disorders is not well documented in LMICs like India, due to several bottlenecks present in Indian healthcare system like lack of adequate resources, low budget for mental health services and inequity in accessibility of treatment. Hence, a large proportion of health expenditure is paid out of pocket by the households.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the direct and indirect costs incurred by patients with First Episode Psychosis and their families in a North Indian setting.

METHOD

Direct and Indirect costs were estimated for 87 patients diagnosed at AIIMS, New Delhi with first-episode psychosis (nonaffective) in the first- and sixth month following diagnosis, and the six months before diagnosis, using a bespoke questionnaire. Indirect costs were valued using the Human Capital Approach.

RESULTS

Mean total costs in month one were INR 7991 ($107.5). Indirect costs were 78.3% of this total. Productivity losses was a major component of the indirect cost. Transportation was a key component of direct costs. Costs fell substantially at six months (INR 2732, Indirect Costs 61%). Respondents incurred substantial costs pre-diagnosis, related to formal and informal care seeking and loss of income.

CONCLUSION

Families suffered substantial productivity loss. Care models and financial protection that address this could substantially reduce the financial burden of mental illness. Measures to address disruption to work and education during FEP are likely to have significant long-term benefits. Families also suffered prolonged income loss pre-diagnosis, highlighting the benefits of early and effective diagnosis.

Recommendations for Emerging Good Practice and Future Research in Relation to Family and Caregiver Health Spillovers in Health Economic Evaluations: A Report of the SHEER Task Force

BACKGROUND

Omission of family and caregiver health spillovers from the economic evaluation of healthcare interventions remains common practice. When reported, a high degree of methodological inconsistency in incorporating spillovers has been observed.

AIM

To promote emerging good practice, this paper from the Spillovers in Health Economic Evaluation and Research (SHEER) task force aims to provide guidance on the incorporation of family and caregiver health spillovers in cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analysis. SHEER also seeks to inform the basis for a spillover research agenda and future practice.

METHODS

A modified nominal group technique was used to reach consensus on a set of recommendations, representative of the views of participating subject-matter experts. Through the structured discussions of the group, as well as on the basis of evidence identified during a review process, recommendations were proposed and voted upon, with voting being held over two rounds.

RESULTS

This report describes 11 consensus recommendations for emerging good practice. SHEER advocates for the incorporation of health spillovers into analyses conducted from a healthcare/health payer perspective, and more generally inclusive perspectives such as a societal perspective. Where possible, spillovers related to displaced/foregone activities should be considered, as should the distributional consequences of inclusion. Time horizons ought to be sufficient to capture all relevant impacts. Currently, the collection of primary spillover data is preferred and clear justification should be provided when using secondary data. Transparency and consistency when reporting on the incorporation of health spillovers are crucial. In addition, given that the evidence base relating to health spillovers remains limited and requires much development, 12 avenues for future research are proposed.

CONCLUSIONS

Consideration of health spillovers in economic evaluations has been called for by researchers and policymakers alike. Accordingly, it is hoped that the consensus recommendations of SHEER will motivate more widespread incorporation of health spillovers into analyses. The developing nature of spillover research necessitates that this guidance be viewed as an initial roadmap, rather than a strict checklist. Moreover, there is a need for balance between consistency in approach, where valuable in a decision making context, and variation in application, to reflect differing decision maker perspectives and to support innovation.

A randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled trial of a two-week course of dexamethasone for adult patients with a symptomatic Chronic Subdural Haematoma (Dex-CSDH trial)

Background

Chronic subdural haematoma is a collection of 'old blood' and its breakdown products in the subdural space and predominantly affects older people. Surgical evacuation remains the mainstay in the management of symptomatic cases.

Objective

The Dex-CSDH (DEXamethasone in Chronic SubDural Haematoma) randomised trial investigated the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of dexamethasone in patients with a symptomatic chronic subdural haematoma.

Design

This was a parallel, superiority, multicentre, pragmatic, randomised controlled trial. Assigned treatment was administered in a double-blind fashion. Outcome assessors were also blinded to treatment allocation.

Setting

Neurosurgical units in the UK.

Participants

Eligible participants included adults (aged ≥ 18 years) admitted to a neurosurgical unit with a symptomatic chronic subdural haematoma confirmed on cranial imaging.

Interventions

Participants were randomly assigned in a 1 : 1 allocation to a 2-week tapering course of dexamethasone or placebo alongside standard care.

Main outcome measures

The primary outcome was the Modified Rankin Scale score at 6 months dichotomised to a favourable (score of 0-3) or an unfavourable (score of 4-6) outcome. Secondary outcomes included the Modified Rankin Scale score at discharge and 3 months; number of chronic subdural haematoma-related surgical interventions undertaken during the index and subsequent admissions; Barthel Index and EuroQol 5-Dimension 5-Level utility index score reported at discharge, 3 months and 6 months; Glasgow Coma Scale score reported at discharge and 6 months; mortality at 30 days and 6 months; length of stay; discharge destination; and adverse events. An economic evaluation was also undertaken, during which the net monetary benefit was estimated at a willingness-to-pay threshold of £20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year.

Results

A total of 748 patients were included after randomisation: 375 were assigned to dexamethasone and 373 were assigned to placebo. The mean age of the patients was 74 years and 94% underwent evacuation of their chronic subdural haematoma during the trial period. A total of 680 patients (91%) had 6-month primary outcome data available for analysis: 339 in the placebo arm and 341 in the dexamethasone arm. On a modified intention-to-treat analysis of the full study population, there was an absolute reduction in the proportion of favourable outcomes of 6.4% (95% confidence interval 11.4% to 1.4%; p = 0.01) in the dexamethasone arm compared with the control arm at 6 months. At 3 months, the between-group difference was also in favour of placebo (-8.2%, 95% confidence interval -13.3% to -3.1%). Serious adverse events occurred in 60 out of 375 (16.0%) in the dexamethasone arm and 24 out of 373 (6.4%) in the placebo arm. The net monetary benefit of dexamethasone compared with placebo was estimated to be -£97.19.

Conclusions

This trial reports a higher rate of unfavourable outcomes at 6 months, and a higher rate of serious adverse events, in the dexamethasone arm than in the placebo arm. Dexamethasone was also not estimated to be cost-effective. Therefore, dexamethasone cannot be recommended for the treatment of chronic subdural haematoma in this population group.

Future work and limitations

A total of 94% of individuals underwent surgery, meaning that this trial does not fully define the role of dexamethasone in conservatively managed haematomas, which is a potential area for future study.

Trial registration

This trial is registered as ISRCTN80782810.

Funding

This award was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme (NIHR award ref: 13/15/02) and is published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 28, No. 12. See the NIHR Funding and Awards website for further award information.

Provider and female client economic costs of integrated sexual and reproductive health and HIV services in Zimbabwe

A retrospective facility-based costing study was undertaken to estimate the comparative cost per visit of five integrated sexual and reproductive health and HIV (human immuno-deficiency virus) services (provider perspective) within five clinic sites. These five clinics were part of four service delivery models: Non-governmental-organisation (NGO) directly managed model (Chitungwiza and New Africa House sites), NGO partner managed site (Mutare site), private-public-partnership (PPP) model (Chitungwiza Profam Clinic), and NGO directly managed outreach (operating from New Africa House site. In addition client cost exit interviews (client perspective) were conducted among 856 female clients exiting integrated services at three of the sites. Our costing approach involved first a facility bottom-up costing exercise (February to April 2015), conducted to quantify and value each resource input required to provide individual SRH and HIV services. Secondly overhead financial expenditures were allocated top-down from central office to sites and then respective integrated service based on pre-defined allocation factors derived from both the site facility observations and programme data for the prior 12 months. Costs were assessed in 2015 United States dollars (USD). Costs were assessed for HIV testing and counselling, screening and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis screening with smear microscopy, family planning, and cervical cancer screening and treatment employing visual inspection with acetic acid and cervicography and cryotherapy. Variability in costs per visit was evident across the models being highest for cervical cancer screening and cryotherapy (range: US$6.98-US$49.66). HIV testing and counselling showed least variability (range; US$10.96-US$16.28). In general the PPP model offered integrated services at the lowest unit costs whereas the partner managed site was highest. Significant client costs remain despite availability of integrated sexual and reproductive health and HIV services free of charge in our Zimbabwe study setting. Situating services closer to communities, incentives, transport reimbursements, reducing waiting times and co-location of sexual and reproductive health and HIV services may help minimise impact of client costs.

The Economic Costs of Informal Care: Estimates from a National Cross-Sectional Survey in The Netherlands

Faced with an unprecedented demand for long-term care, European health care systems are moving towards mixed care models, where the welfare state and informal caregivers share care responsibilities. While informal care is often viewed as a means of alleviating pressure on public care, it comes with significant economic costs for caregivers, their employers, and society at large. This study uses nationally representative data to estimate the total direct (informal care time and out-of-pocket costs) and indirect (productivity) economic costs of informal care in the Netherlands in 2019. Informal care time costs are estimated using the opportunity cost and the proxy good methods. Indirect costs are estimated using the human capital and friction cost approaches. Our results reveal the considerable annual societal cost of informal care in the Netherlands, ranging between €17.5 billion and €30.1 billion, depending on the valuation approach. These costs are equivalent to 2.15% and 3.71% of Dutch GDP in 2019, comparable to the public expenditure on long-term care in that year. Female caregivers account for slightly more than half (53%-57%) of the total costs. Around 57%-88% of these costs are in the form of informal care time. The main driver of indirect costs is the temporary cessation of work, which comprises 12%-17% of the total costs. Findings corroborate that substantial resources, yet thus far largely disregarded, are spent on informal care even in a country with a relatively generous public long-term care system.

Research trends in contemporary health economics: a scientometric analysis on collective content of specialty journals

INTRODUCTION

Health economics is a thriving sub-discipline of economics. Applied health economics research is considered essential in the health care sector and is used extensively by public policy makers. For scholars, it is important to understand the history and status of health economics-when it emerged, the rate of research output, trending topics, and its temporal evolution-to ensure clarity and direction when formulating research questions.

METHODS

Nearly 13,000 articles were analysed, which were found in the collective publications of the ten most specialised health economic journals. We explored this literature using patterns of term co-occurrence and document co-citation.

RESULTS

The research output in this field is growing exponentially. Five main research divisions were identified: (i) macroeconomic evaluation, (ii) microeconomic evaluation, (iii) measurement and valuation of outcomes, (iv) monitoring mechanisms (evaluation), and (v) guidance and appraisal. Document co-citation analysis revealed eighteen major research streams and identified variation in the magnitude of activities in each of the streams. A recent emergence of research activities in health economics was seen in the Medicaid Expansion stream. Established research streams that continue to show high levels of activity include Child Health, Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and Cost-effectiveness. Conversely, Patient Preference, Health Care Expenditure and Economic Evaluation are now past their peak of activity in specialised health economic journals. Analysis also identified several streams that emerged in the past but are no longer active.

CONCLUSIONS

Health economics is a growing field, yet there is minimal evidence of creation of new research trends. Over the past 10 years, the average rate of annual increase in internationally collaborated publications is almost double that of domestic collaborations (8.4% vs 4.9%), but most of the top scholarly collaborations remain between six countries only.

On spillovers in economic evaluations: definition, mapping review and research agenda

An important issue in economic evaluations is determining whether all relevant impacts are considered, given the perspective chosen for the analysis. Acknowledging that patients are not isolated individuals has important implications in this context. Increasingly, the term "spillovers" is used to label consequences of health interventions on others. However, a clear definition of spillovers is lacking, and as a result, the scope of the concept remains unclear. In this study, we aim to clarify the concept of spillovers by proposing a definition applicable in health economic evaluations. To illustrate the implications of this definition, we highlight the diversity of potential spillovers through an expanded impact inventory and conduct a mapping review that outlines the evidence base for the different types of spillovers. In the context of economic evaluations of health interventions, we define spillovers as all impacts from an intervention on all parties or entities other than the users of the intervention under evaluation. This definition encompasses a broader range of potential costs and effects, beyond informal caregivers and family members. The expanded impact inventory enables a systematic approach to identifying broader impacts of health interventions. The mapping review shows that the relevance of different types of spillovers is context-specific. Some spillovers are regularly included in economic evaluations, although not always recognised as such, while others are not. A consistent use of the term "spillovers", improved measurement of these costs and effects, and increased transparency in reporting them are still necessary. To that end, we propose a research agenda.

Choosing the Best Instrument for Measuring Health Spillover Effect in Caregivers of Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

OBJECTIVES

To measure the health spillover effect in caregivers of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), we aimed to select the best instrument from 2 common health-related quality of life (QoL) instruments, the 3-level EQ-5D (EQ-5D-3L) and the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI-3), by assessing them.

METHODS

Using consecutive sampling, 452 primary caregivers of patients with MS were asked to fill out a Care-related QoL instrument (CarerQol-7D), EQ-5D-3L, HUI-3, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale between October 2019 and May 2020. Convergent and clinical validity were assessed to measure spillover effect in caregivers of patients with MS.

RESULTS

A strong correlation of health-utility scores between EQ-5D-3L and HUI-3 (r = 0.914, P < .01) was observed. The 95% limit of agreement (LoA) for CarerQol-7D and HUI-3 (-10.6 to 8.2) was narrower than the LoA for CarerQol-7D and EQ-5D-3L (-15.1 to 17.1). Both EQ-5D-3L and HUI-3 proved clinical validity for the QoL of caregivers. The CarerQoL-7D score was significantly lower in female (P < .001), single (P < .014), lower-educated (P < .001), parent's relatives (P < .001), and unemployed (P < .001) caregivers.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that both, EQ-5D-3L and HUI-3, were appropriate for measuring caregivers' QoL, although HUI-3 was a better choice because of its narrower LoA. Our findings suggest researchers should use HUI-3 to measure the quality-adjusted life-year of caregivers to aggregate with the QoL of patients in the denominator of an economic evaluation equation, such as the cost-effective ratio.

Informal Care Costs According to Age and Proximity to Death to Support Cost-Effectiveness Analyses

BACKGROUND

Costs of informal care are ignored in many cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) conducted from a societal perspective; however, these costs are relevant for lifesaving interventions targeted at the older population. In this study, we estimated informal care costs by age and proximity to death across European regions and showed how these estimates can be included in CEAs.

METHODS

We estimated informal care costs by age and proximity to death using generalised linear mixed-effects models. For this, we selected deceased singles from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement, which we grouped by four European regions. We combined the estimates of informal care costs with life tables to illustrate the impact of including informal care costs on the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of a hypothetical intervention that prevents a death at different ages.

RESULTS

Informal care use, and hence informal care costs, increase when approaching death and with increasing age. The impact of including informal care costs on the ICER varies between €200 and €17,700 per quality-adjusted life-year gained. The impact increases with age and is stronger for women and in southern European countries.

CONCLUSION

Our estimates of informal care costs facilitate including informal care costs in CEAs of life-extending healthcare interventions. Including these costs may influence decisions as it leads to reranking of life-extending interventions compared with interventions improving quality of life.

Caregivers' willingness to pay for digital support services: Comparative survey

BACKGROUND

Considering the substantial information needs experienced by informal caregivers, the increased availability of digital support services for caregivers as well as the potential they offer, further understanding of caregivers' willingness to pay for digital support services is needed.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to identify associations between informal caregiver's characteristics and their willingness to pay for digital support services in two countries: Italy and Sweden.

METHODS

A sample of 378 respondents participated in a cross-sectional survey. Respondents were recruited by the Italian National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing and the Swedish Family Care Competence Centre. A two-part regression model was used. In the first part, logistic regression analysis was applied to investigate the association between willingness to pay and sets of independent variables (caregiver's demographics, caregiver's socioeconomic resources and caregiving context). In the second part, a generalized linear model (log-link and gamma distribution) was applied to determine the adjusted mean willingness to pay.

RESULTS

More than half of the participants from both countries of our study were willing to pay out of pocket for digital support services. A recommendation by a healthcare professional was the top factor that may motivate caregivers' willingness to pay an additional amount for a paid version of a digital support service. In both countries, the majority of the respondents believe that the government should allocate more funds for digital support services and for improving digital infrastructures. Caregiver' s gender, care recipient relationship to the caregiver, care duration, the total household income and the amount spent per month on professional caregiving services are all associated with willingness to pay. For every additional 10 Euro increase in the amount spent per month on professional caregiving services, the odds of willingness to pay an additional Euro for a digital support service increased by 0.60 % in the Italian sample (p= 0.002, 95% CI: 1.002, 1.009) and 0.31% in the Swedish sample (p=0.015, 95% CI: 1.006, 1.057).

CONCLUSIONS

Factors such as demographics, socioeconomic resources and the caregiving context may play a role in caregivers' willingness to pay for digital support services. The digital and social divide may negatively affect caregivers' willingness to pay for digital support services. Policy makers and insurance providers should consider innovative policies to fund digital support services that have been shown to be effective at supporting and improving caregivers' health outcomes via subsidies or other incentives. Future research that evaluates the cost-effectiveness of digital support services is needed in a context of a growing number of informal caregivers and ever scarcer resources.

Willingness to provide informal care to older adults in Germany: a discrete choice experiment

As the German population is continually aging and the majority of older adults still wish to 'age in place', the need for informal care provided by family and friends will correspondingly continue to increase. In addition, while the need for formal (professional) care services is also likely to increase, the supply already does not meet the demand in Germany today. The aim of our study is the elicitation of people's willingness to provide informal care by means of a discrete choice experiment. The self-complete postal survey was disseminated to a random sample of the German general population in Lower Saxony. Data cleansing resulted in a final sample size of 280 participants. A conditional logit and a latent class model were estimated. All attributes were judged as highly relevant by the respondents. The results revealed that an increase in the care hours per day had the greatest negative impact overall on the willingness to provide informal care in our sample. The marginal willingness-to-accept for 1 h of informal care was €14.54 when having to provide informal care for 8 h in reference to 2 h per day. This value is considerably higher than the national minimum wage of €9.82. A three-class latent class model revealed preference heterogeneity. While a monetary compensation is often discussed to increase the willingness and availability of informal care in a country, our results show that this statement could not be generalized within our entire sample.

Does the inclusion of societal costs change the economic evaluations recommendations? A systematic review for multiple sclerosis disease

BACKGROUND

Multiple sclerosis imposes a heavy burden on the person who suffers from it and on the relatives, due to the caregiving load involved. The objective was to analyse whether the inclusion of social costs in economic evaluations of multiple sclerosis-related interventions changed results and/or conclusions.

METHODS

A systematic review was launched using Medline and the Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry of Tufts University (2000-2019). Included studies should: (1) be an original study published in a scientific journal, (2) be an economic evaluation of any multiple sclerosis-related intervention, (3) include productivity losses and/or informal care costs (social costs), (4) be written in English, (5) use quality-adjusted life years as outcome, and (6) separate the results according to the perspective applied.

RESULTS

Twenty-nine articles were selected, resulting in 67 economic evaluation estimations. Social costs were included in 47% of the studies. Productivity losses were assessed in 90% of the estimations (the human capital approach was the most frequently used method), whereas informal care costs were included in nearly two-thirds of the estimations (applying the opportunity and the replacement-cost methods equally). The inclusion of social costs modified the figures for incremental costs in 15 estimations, leading to a change in the conclusions in 10 estimations, 6 of them changing from not recommended from the healthcare perspective to implemented from the societal perspective. The inclusion of social costs also altered the results from cost-effective to dominant in five additional estimations.

CONCLUSIONS

The inclusion of social costs affected the results/conclusions in multiple sclerosis-related interventions, helping to identify the most appropriate interventions for reducing its economic burden from a broader perspective.

Partially different? The importance of general equilibrium in health economic evaluations: An application to nocturia

Both the human capital approach and the friction cost approach are frequently used to quantify the productivity costs associated with illness, disability or death in health economic evaluations. In this paper we argue that these approaches have one major, but common shortcoming: they only capture partial equilibrium (PE) effects and therefore underestimate the true potential productivity costs associated with health conditions. They neglect the sizable, indirect, ripple effects in the economy captured by general equilibrium (GE) models. To demonstrate our point, we compare a traditional PE with a GE approach for the application to nocturia, a condition characterized by the need to frequently wake up at night to urinate. Nocturia is associated with substantial impairment of daytime functioning and work productivity. We employ large-scale United Kingdom (UK) employer-employee survey data to estimate the prevalence and productivity loss. These estimates are then used as shared inputs to drive both approaches. We find that the traditional PE approach underestimates the annual productivity cost of clinically relevant nocturia by around 16%. We propose a generalized GE/PE multiplier to approximate the GE effect for other health conditions. Our findings stress the importance of accounting for sizable GE effects when conducting health economic evaluations.

[Cost-effectiveness analysis of palliative care of cancer patients in the end of life]

Home palliative care services of terminal patients may associate home care preferences with desirable health outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of home palliative care of cancer patients in the last year of life in the public health subsector in a province of Argentina. A cost-effectiveness Markov model was developed from a social and the health funder's perspective in order to reflect the reality of home palliative care at the local level compared with usual care. Direct costs to the health system and indirect costs of unpaid informal care were estimated based on local information. Palliative care increased the likelihood of patients dying at home by 10.32% compared with usual care, with annual savings of USD 750 and USD 1,012 per patient, respectively, from both the social and the funder's perspective in the public health subsector in Río Negro. From both the social and financial perspective, the strategy to implement organized care services was more effective and lower-cost, measured by the percentage of patients who died at home. From a social perspective, the main cost inducer was the formal care provided by families, but from the funder's perspective, it refers to the salaries of the health team.

Family Spillover Effects: Are Economic Evaluations Misrepresenting the Value of Healthcare Interventions to Society?

The societal impacts of health interventions are seldom incorporated into health economic evaluations, including the impact that illness can have on informal or unpaid caregivers and other family members (i.e., "family spillover effects"). Previous research has demonstrated that by excluding family spillover effects, the value of health interventions may be underestimated on average. In this commentary, we discuss how the inclusion of spillover effects influences how we value interventions and, given the extent to which caregiver/family effects are largely not captured or known, propose ways in which these data could be more systematically collected or estimated and used by researchers. These recommendations include prioritizing data collection alongside clinical trials and patient registries, engaging expert opinion panels, and developing mapping algorithms for estimating caregiver/family utility values from non-preference-based caregiver health-related quality-of-life measures and/or from patient preference-based measures.

Informal care in times of a public health crisis: Objective burden, subjective burden and quality of life of caregivers in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic

In the Netherlands, about one-third of the adult population provides unpaid care. Providing informal caregiving can be very straining in normal times, but the impact of a public health crisis on caregivers is largely unknown. This study focuses on the question of how caregiver burden changed following the COVID-19 pandemic, and what characteristics were related to these changes. We use self-reported data from a sample of 965 informal caregivers from the Netherlands 3 months into the pandemic to investigate how the objective burden (i.e. hours spent on caregiving) and the subjective burden had changed, and what their care-related quality of life (CarerQol) was. We found that on average the subjective burden had increased slightly (from 4.75 to 5.04 on a 0-10 scale). However, our analysis revealed that some caregivers were more affected than others. Most affected caregivers were women, and those with low income, better physical health, decreased psychological health, childcare responsibilities, longer duration of caregiving and those caring for someone with decreased physical and psychological health. On average, time spent on care remained the same (a median of 15 h per week), but certain groups of caregivers did experience a change, being those caring for people in an institution and for people with a better psychological health before the pandemic. Furthermore, caregivers experiencing changes in objective burden did not have the same characteristics as those experiencing changes in perceived burden and quality of life. This shows that the consequences of a public health crisis on caregivers cannot be captured by a focus on either objective or subjective burden measures or quality of life alone. Long-term care policies aiming to support caregivers to persevere during a future crisis should target caregivers at risk of increased subjective burden and a lower CarerQol, such as women, people with a low income and people with childcare responsibilities. Such policies should consider that reducing objective burden may not necessarily lead to a reduction in subjective burden for all caregivers.

The Economic Value of Non-professional Care: A Europe-Wide Analysis

BACKGROUND

This paper had two aims. Firstly, to provide a broader view of the profile of non-professional caregivers in Europe, and secondly, to estimate the economic value of the non-professional caregiving.

METHODS

The European Quality of Life Survey 2016/2017, carried out by Eurofound, was used. The target population of the survey was adults who care for a relative or friend in a total of 33 European countries. The opportunity cost method was used to estimate the economic value of caregiving, in which two of the activities forgone were analysed: paid activities (restricted to caregivers who were employed), for which the average gross wage of each country was used; and unpaid activities, for which the minimum gross wage of each country was used.

RESULTS

There were more than 76 million non-professional caregivers in Europe that provide care for a relative or friend. This figure represents 12.7% of the population in Europe. The estimated time devoted to non-professional care in Europe reached 72 301.5 million hours in 2016. Sharp differences were found among countries. The economic value of that time is estimated at 576 000 million of euros, which represented about 3.63% of Europe's gross domestic product (GDP).

CONCLUSION

This study shows the very important number of resources dedicated to the non-professional care of dependent people and their economic valuation. These results may be helpful in prospective analyses estimating future needs on professional and non-professional and for designing of long-term care (LTC) policies in Europe.

“The Impact of Demographic Change on Transfers of Care and Associated Well-being”

This study aims to evaluate the impact of demographic change on long-term, macro-level childcare and adult care transfers, accounting for the associated well-being effects of informal caregiving. We measure the impact of demographic change on non-monetary care exchanged between different groups by estimating matrices of time transfers by age and sex, and weighting the time flows by self-reported indicators of well-being, for activities related to childcare and adult care. The analysis employs cross-sectional data from the American Time Use Survey 2011–2013, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Disability, and Use of Time Module 2013 to produce the estimates of well-being associated with the two forms of care and their future projections. Both men and women experience more positive feelings when caring for children than when caring for adults. As a whole, caregiving is an overwhelmingly more positive experience than it is negative across both genders and care types. Yet women often report more tiredness and stress than men when providing childcare, while also experiencing more pain while performing adult care, as compared to childcare activities. Women of reproductive ages spend double the amount of care time associated with negative feelings, relative to men, most of which is spent on early childcare. We project a progressively widening gender gap in terms of positive feelings related to care in the coming decades. Future reductions in absolute caregiver well-being influenced by demographic changes at the population level may reduce workforce participation, productivity, and adversely impact psycho-physical condition of caregivers, if not offset by targeted policies.

Individual and national financial impacts of informal caring for people with mental illness in Australia, projected to 2030

BACKGROUND

Mental illness has a significant impact not only on patients, but also on their carers' capacity to work.

AIMS

To estimate the costs associated with lost labour force participation due to the provision of informal care for people with mental illness in Australia, such as income loss for carers and lost tax revenue and increased welfare payments for government, from 2015 to 2030.

METHOD

The output data of a microsimulation model Care&WorkMOD were analysed to project the financial costs of informal care for people with mental illness, from 2015 to 2030. Care&WorkMOD is a population-representative microsimulation model of the Australian population aged between 15 and 64 years, built using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Surveys of Disability, Ageing and Carers data and the data from other population-representative microsimulation models.

RESULTS

The total annual national loss of income for all carers due to caring for someone with mental illness was projected to rise from AU$451 million (£219.6 million) in 2015 to AU$645 million (£314 million) in 2030 in real terms. For the government, the total annual lost tax revenue was projected to rise from AU$121 million (£58.9 million) in 2015 to AU$170 million (£82.8 million) in 2030 and welfare payments to increase from AU$170 million (£82.8 million) to AU$220 million (£107 million) in 2030.

CONCLUSIONS

The costs associated with lost labour force participation due to the provision of informal care for people with mental illness are projected to increase for both carers and government, with a widening income gap between informal carers and employed non-carers, putting carers at risk of increased inequality.

A Comparison of Methods for Identifying Informal Carers: Self-Declaration Versus a Time Diary

OBJECTIVES

Two main methods for identifying whether an individual is an informal carer are self-declaration and the use of a time diary. We analysed the level and predictors of agreement between these two methods among co-residential informal carers of adult recipients.

METHODS

We used the 2014/15 UK Time Use Survey, which is a large-scale household survey for those aged 8 years old and over. It contains an individual questionnaire for self-declaration and a time diary for activity-based identification that records all activity in 10-min slots for two 24-h periods. Our analysis: (i) assesses the degree of overlap across approaches; (ii) explores the differences in characteristics between carers identified via one approach relative to non-carers using a bivariate probit estimator; and (iii) shows what factors are associated with being identified by both approaches using two independent probit estimators.

RESULTS

Out of 6301 individuals, we identified 545 carers (8.6%) by at least one method and only 104 (19.1% of 545 carers) by both methods. We found similar factors predicted caregiving using either method but the magnitudes of the effects of these factors were larger for self-declared carers. Activity-based carers who provided more activities to a dependent adult and spent more time caregiving were more likely to also self-declare.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show low levels of agreement between the two main methods used to identify informal carers. Any assessment of current caregiving research or future means to collect caregiving information should pay particular attention to the identification method as it may only relate to certain carer groups.

Productivity of Working at Home and Time Allocation Between Paid Work, Unpaid Work and Leisure Activities During a Pandemic

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments to contain it have affected many aspects of the daily lives of citizens. This study aimed to describe changes in the productivity of paid work and time allocation to paid and unpaid work and leisure resulting from working at home during the pandemic.

METHODS

A sample of 851 people from the Netherlands who had paid work (≥ 24 h/week) and worked at least 4 hours per week extra at home because of lockdown measures completed a questionnaire during the first COVID-19 lockdown (April 2020). Respondents reported time spent on paid and unpaid work and leisure before and during the lockdown. Productivity was measured in terms of quantity and quality of paid work.

RESULTS

On average, respondents spent less time (14%) on paid work and productivity decreased 5.5%. Changes in productivity were associated with the age of children, net income and having a separate home office. Respondents spent more time on unpaid work (27%) and leisure (11%). Women spent more time on unpaid work in absolute but not in relative terms. People with a partner and with children spent more time on unpaid work and less time on leisure.

CONCLUSIONS

Productivity of paid work decreased, and people reallocated time between paid and unpaid work and leisure during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Changes in time allocation and productivity differed across subgroups. If working at home becomes more common, future research should focus on the long-term impact on productivity and mental and physical health.

Conceptualising 'Benefits Beyond Health' in the Context of the Quality-Adjusted Life-Year: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis

There is growing interest in extending the evaluative space of the quality-adjusted life-year framework beyond health. Using a critical interpretive synthesis approach, the objective was to review peer-reviewed literature that has discussed non-health outcomes within the context of quality-adjusted life-years and synthesise information into a thematic framework. Papers were identified through searches conducted in Web of Science, using forward citation searching. A critical interpretive synthesis allows for the development of interpretations (synthetic constructs) that go beyond those offered in the original sources. The final output of a critical interpretive synthesis is the synthesising argument, which integrates evidence from across studies into a coherent thematic framework. A concept map was developed to show the relationships between different types of non-health benefits. The critical interpretive synthesis was based on 99 papers. The thematic framework was constructed around four themes: (1) benefits affecting well-being (subjective well-being, psychological well-being, capability and empowerment); (2) benefits derived from the process of healthcare delivery; (3) benefits beyond the recipient of care (spillover effects, externalities, option value and distributional benefits); and (4) benefits beyond the healthcare sector. There is a wealth of research concerning non-health benefits and the evaluative space of the quality-adjusted life-year. Further dialogue and debate are necessary to address conceptual and normative challenges, to explore the societal willingness to sacrifice health for benefits beyond health and to consider the equity implications of different courses of action.

Cost-effectiveness of Cardiac Telerehabilitation With Relapse Prevention for the Treatment of Patients With Coronary Artery Disease in the Netherlands

Importance

Cardiac telerehabilitation (CTR) has been found to be a safe and beneficial alternative to traditional center-based cardiac rehabilitation (CR) and might be associated with higher participation rates by reducing barriers to CR use. However, implementation of CTR interventions remains low, which may be owing to a lack of cost-effectiveness analyses of data from large-scale randomized clinical trials.

Objective

To assess the cost-effectiveness of CTR with relapse prevention compared with center-based CR among patients with coronary artery disease.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This economic evaluation performed a cost-utility analysis of data from the SmartCare-CAD (Effects of Cardiac Telerehabilitation in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease Using a Personalized Patient-Centred ICT Platform) randomized clinical trial. The cost-effectiveness and utility of 3 months of cardiac telerehabilitation followed by 9 months of relapse prevention were compared with the cost-effectiveness of traditional center-based cardiac rehabilitation. The analysis included 300 patients with stable coronary artery disease who received care at a CR center serving 2 general hospitals in the Netherlands between May 23, 2016, and July 26, 2018. All patients were entering phase 2 of outpatient CR and were followed up for 1 year (until August 14, 2019). Data were analyzed from September 21, 2020, to September 24, 2021.

Intervention

After baseline measurements were obtained, participants were randomly assigned on a 1:1 ratio to receive CTR (intervention group) or center-based CR (control group) using computerized block randomization. After 6 supervised center-based training sessions, patients in the intervention group continued training at home using a heart rate monitor and accelerometer. Patients uploaded heart rate and physical activity data and discussed their progress during a weekly video consultation with their physical therapist. After 3 months, weekly coaching was concluded, and on-demand coaching was initiated for relapse prevention; patients were instructed to continue using their wearable sensors and were contacted in cases of nonadherence to the intervention or reduced exercise or physical activity volumes.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Quality-adjusted life-years were assessed using the EuroQol 5-Dimension 5-Level survey (EQ-5D-5L) and the EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS), and cardiac-associated health care costs and non-health care costs were measured by health care consumption, productivity, and informal care questionnaires (the Medical Consumption Questionnaire, the Productivity Cost Questionnaire, and the Valuation of Informal Care Questionnaire) designed by the Institute for Medical Technology Assessment. Costs were converted to 2020 price levels (in euros) using the Dutch consumer price index (to convert to US dollars, euro values were multiplied by 1.142, which was the mean exchange rate in 2020).

Results

Among 300 patients (266 men [88.7%]), the mean (SD) age was 60.7 (9.5) years. The quality of life among patients receiving CTR vs center-based CR was comparable during the study according to the results of both utility measures (mean difference on EQ-5D-5L: -0.004; P = .82; mean difference on EQ-VAS: -0.001; P = .92). Intervention costs were significantly higher for CTR (mean [SE], €224 [€4] [$256 ($4)]) compared with center-based CR (mean [SE], €156 [€5] [$178 ($6)]; P < .001); however, no difference in overall cardiac health care costs was observed between CTR (mean [SE], €4787 [€503] [$5467 ($574)] and center-based CR (mean [SE], €5507 [€659] [$6289 ($753)]; P = .36). From a societal perspective, CTR was associated with lower costs compared with center-based CR (mean [SE], €20 495 [€ 2751] [$23 405 ($3142)] vs €24 381 [€3613] [$27 843 ($4126)], respectively), although this difference was not statistically significant (-€3887 [-$4439]; P = .34).

Conclusions and Relevance

In this economic evaluation, a CTR intervention with relapse prevention was likely to be cost-effective compared with center-based CR, suggesting that CTR maybe used as an alternative intervention for the treatment of patients with coronary artery disease. These results add to the evidence base in favor of CTR and may increase the implementation of CTR interventions in clinical practice.

Cost analysis of informal care: estimates from a national cross-sectional survey in Sweden

Background

Over the past decades, informal care has increased in most OECD-countries. Informal care is costly to caregivers and to society in the form of lost income and direct costs of providing care. Existing evidence suggests that providing informal care affects caregivers’ overall health. However, estimates of the social costs of informal care based on national data on individuals are currently scarce.

Objective

This study contributes to the existing evidence on the costs of informal care by estimating the direct and indirect costs to caregivers using a purposive national household survey from Sweden.

Methods

Adopting a bottom-up, prevalence approach, the direct and indirect costs are estimated using the survey data and the value of working time and leisure time from existing sources.

Results

The results suggest that around 15% of the adult population of Sweden provide informal care and that such care costs around SEK 152 billion per year (around 3% of GDP; USD 16,3 billion; EUR 14,5 billion), or SEK 128000 per caregiver. Around 55% of costs are in the form of income loss to caregivers. The largest cost items are reduced work hours and direct costs of providing informal care. Replacing informal caregivers with professional care providers would be costly at around SEK 193,6 billion per year.

Conclusions

Findings indicate that, even in a country with a relatively generous welfare system, significant resources are allocated toward providing informal care. The costing analysis suggests that effective support initiatives to ease the burden of informal caregivers may be cost-effective.

The relative value of carer and patient quality of life: A person trade-off (PTO) study

Carer quality of life is increasingly considered alongside patient quality of life in economic evaluation. Important questions remain about how to value carer and patient quality of life effects alongside one another. In this study, we estimated the relative social value of two conceptualisations of carer quality of life (health-related and care-related) compared to patient quality of life. Relative valuations were estimated using a person trade-off (PTO) study with 990 representative members of the UK public. Participants chose between hypothetical services that improved the quality of life of carers and patients, iterating to a point of indifference. Overall 84% of participants completing the task were willing to trade patient and carer quality of life effects. Relative to a reference point of 1 for patient health-related quality of life, we estimated a social value of 0.74 for carer health-related quality of life effects and 0.69 for carer care-related quality of life effects. In conclusion, public preferences appear to support the inclusion of carer quality of life effects within economic evaluation. The results provide a means to value different carer quality of life outcomes in economic evaluation, where such values are needed and deemed appropriate.

The Challenges of Measuring Informal Care Time: A Review of the Literature

Economic evaluations increasingly include the value of informal care, for example, in terms of caregiver health effects or time costs. If an economic evaluation uses caregiving time costs, appropriate measurement of caregiving time is an important first step prior to its valuation. There is no comprehensive overview of the measurement challenges for caregiving time. In this literature review, we searched Medline, Embase, Econlit and Scopus to identify measurement issues and associated studies which reported informal care time that addressed them. The search identified 27 studies that addressed nine measurement issues. There is limited evidence on how to address these issues, although some have received relatively more attention, including incremental time (considered in 16 studies), time measurement method comparisons (six studies) and the inclusion of intangible tasks (four studies). Non-response (considered in only one study) and carer and recipient identification (two studies) were the most wide-reaching measurement concerns, as these determine who is identified as carers. There was no evidence on the consequences of these measurement challenges in terms of impacts on cost-effectiveness ratios and on the total cost of health conditions, which would be a crucial next step. Future research on these issues should consider a range of different settings, as informal care is highly heterogeneous. The measurement of informal care is key for its inclusion in economic evaluations but there is little consensus on how to appropriately measure this type of care.

Burden of informal care in stroke survivors and its determinants: a prospective observational study in an Asian setting

BACKGROUND

Informal caregiving is an integral part of post-stroke recovery with strenuous caregiving demands often resulting in caregiving burden, threatening sustainability of caregiving and potentially impacting stroke survivor's outcomes. Our study aimed to examine and quantify objective and subjective informal care burden after stroke; and to explore the factors associated with informal care burden in Singapore.

METHODS

Stroke patients and their informal caregivers were recruited from all five tertiary hospitals in Singapore from December 2010 to September 2013. Informal care comprised of assistance provided by informal caregivers with any of the activities of daily living. Informal care burden was measured by patients' likelihood of requiring informal care, hours of informal care required, and informal caregivers' Zarit's Burden Score. We examined informal care burden at 3-months and 12-months post-stroke. Generalized linear regressions were applied with control variables including patients' and informal caregivers' demographic characteristics, arrangement of informal care, and patients' health status including stroke severity (measured using National Institute of Health Stroke Scale), functional status (measured using Modified Rankin Scale), self-reported depression, and common comorbidities.

RESULTS

Three hundred and five patients and 263 patients were examined at 3-months and 12-months. Around 35% were female and 60% were Chinese. Sixty three percent and 49% of the patients required informal care at 3-months and 12-months point, respectively. Among those who required informal care, average hours required per week were 64.3 h at 3-months and 76.6 h at 12-months point. Patients with higher functional dependency were more likely to require informal care at both time points, and required more hours of informal care at 3-months point. Female informal caregivers and those caring for patients with higher functional dependency reported higher Zarit's Burden. While informal caregivers who worked full-time reported higher burden, those caring for married stroke patients reported lower burden at 3-months point. Informal caregivers who co-cared with foreign domestic workers, i.e.: stay-in migrant female waged domestic workers, reported lower burden.

CONCLUSIONS

Informal care burden remains high up to 12-months post-stroke. Factors such as functional dependency, stroke severity, informal caregiver gender and co-caring with foreign domestic workers were associated with informal care burden.

Evaluation of the Cost-effectiveness of Drug Treatment for Alzheimer Disease in a Simulation Model That Includes Caregiver and Societal Factors

IMPORTANCE

The possibility of widespread use of a novel effective therapy for Alzheimer disease (AD) will present important clinical, policy, and financial challenges.

OBJECTIVE

To describe how including different patient, caregiver, and societal treatment-related factors affects estimates of the cost-effectiveness of a hypothetical disease-modifying AD treatment.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

In this economic evaluation, the Alzheimer Disease Archimedes Condition Event Simulator was used to simulate the prognosis of a hypothetical cohort of patients selected from the Alzheimer Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database who received the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Scenario analyses that varied costs and quality of life inputs relevant to patients and caregivers were conducted. The analysis was designed and conducted from June 15, 2019, to September 30, 2020.

EXPOSURES

A hypothetical drug that would delay progression to dementia in individuals with MCI compared with usual care.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), measured by cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained.

RESULTS

The model included a simulated cohort of patients who scored between 24 and 30 on the Mini-Mental State Examination and had a global Clinical Dementia Rating scale of 0.5, with a required memory box score of 0.5 or higher, at baseline. Using a health care sector perspective, which included only individual patient health care costs, the ICER for the hypothetical treatment was $192 000 per QALY gained. The result decreased to $183 000 per QALY gained in a traditional societal perspective analysis with the inclusion of patient non-health care costs. The inclusion of estimated caregiver health care costs produced almost no change in the ICER, but the inclusion of QALYs gained by caregivers led to a substantial reduction in the ICER for the hypothetical treatment, to $107 000 per QALY gained in the health sector perspective. In the societal perspective scenario, with the broadest inclusion of patient and caregiver factors, the ICER decreased to $74 000 per added QALY.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

The findings of this economic evaluation suggest that policy makers should be aware that efforts to estimate and include the effects of AD treatments outside those on patients themselves can affect the results of the cost-effectiveness analyses that often underpin assessments of the value of new treatments. Further research and debate on including these factors in assessments that will inform discussions on fair pricing for new treatments are needed.

The scope of carer effects and their inclusion in decision-making: a UK-based Delphi study

Background and objective

Health and social care may affect unpaid (family) carers’ health and wellbeing in addition to patients’ lives. It is recommended that such impacts (carer effects) are considered in decision-making. However, the scope of carer effects and range of decisions where carer effects should be considered is uncertain. This study aimed to identify: (i) how different categories of healthcare and social care were perceived to impact on unpaid carers; and (ii) whether there was consensus about when carer effects should be formally considered in decision-making contexts.

Methods

A two round, online Delphi study was conducted with 65 UK-based participants (unpaid carers, care professionals, and researchers) with expertise in dementia, mental health, and stroke. Participants considered two broad forms of ‘interventions’ (patient treatment and replacement care) and two broad forms of ‘organisational change’ (staffing and changes in timing/location of care). Participants assessed the likely impacts of these on unpaid carers and whether impacts should be considered in decision-making.

Results

Participants predicted interventions and organisational changes would impact on multiple domains of unpaid carers’ lives, with ‘emotional health’ the most likely outcome to be affected. Patient treatment and replacement care services (‘interventions’) were associated with positive impacts across all domains. Conversely, timing/location changes and staffing changes (‘organisational changes’) were perceived to have mixed and negative impacts. There was widespread support (80–81 %) for considering carer effects in research studies, funding decisions, and patient decision-making.

Conclusions

This study highlights a perception that carer effects are widespread and important to consider in economic evaluation and decision-making. It highlights the particular need to measure and value effects on carers’ emotional health and the need to use a societal perspective to avoid cost shifting to unpaid carers when introducing interventions and making organisational changes.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-06742-4.

Components, impacts and costs of dementia home support: a research programme including the DESCANT RCT

Background

Over half of people with dementia live at home. We know little about what home support could be clinically effective or cost-effective in enabling them to live well.

Objectives

We aimed to (1) review evidence for components of home support, identify their presence in the literature and in services in England, and develop an appropriate economic model; (2) develop and test a practical memory support package in early-stage dementia, test the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of routine home support in later-stage dementia and design a toolkit based on this evidence; and (3) elicit the preferences of staff, carers and people with dementia for home support inputs and packages, and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of these approaches in early- and later-stage dementia.

Design

We undertook (1) an evidence synthesis, national surveys on the NHS and social care and an economic review; (2) a multicentre pragmatic randomised trial [Dementia Early Stage Cognitive Aids New Trial (DESCANT)] to estimate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of providing memory aids and guidance to people with early-stage dementia (the DESCANT intervention), alongside process evaluation and qualitative analysis, an observational study of existing care packages in later-stage dementia along with qualitative analysis, and toolkit development to summarise this evidence; and (3) consultation with experts, staff and carers to explore the balance between informal and paid home support using case vignettes, discrete choice experiments to explore the preferences of people with dementia and carers between home support packages in early- and later-stage dementia, and cost–utility analysis building on trial and observational study.

Setting

The national surveys described Community Mental Health Teams, memory clinics and social care services across England. Recruitment to the trial was through memory services in nine NHS trusts in England and one health board in Wales. Recruitment to the observational study was through social services in 17 local authorities in England. Recruitment for the vignette and preference studies was through memory services, community centres and carers’ organisations.

Participants

People aged > 50 years with dementia within 1 year of first attendance at a memory clinic were eligible for the trial. People aged > 60 years with later-stage dementia within 3 months of a review of care needs were eligible for the observational study. We recruited staff, carers and people with dementia for the vignette and preference studies. All participants had to give written informed consent.

Main outcome measures

The trial and observational study used the Bristol Activities of Daily Living Scale as the primary outcome and also measured quality of life, capability, cognition, general psychological health and carers’ sense of competence.

Methods

Owing to the heterogeneity of interventions, methods and outcome measures, our evidence and economic reviews both used narrative synthesis. The main source of economic studies was the NHS Economic Evaluation Database. We analysed the trial and observational study by linear mixed models. We analysed the trial by ‘treatment allocated’ and used propensity scores to minimise confounding in the observational study.

Results

Our reviews and surveys identified several home support approaches of potential benefit. In early-stage dementia, the DESCANT trial had 468 randomised participants (234 intervention participants and 234 control participants), with 347 participants analysed. We found no significant effect at the primary end point of 6 months of the DESCANT intervention on any of several participant outcome measures. The primary outcome was the Bristol Activities of Daily Living Scale, for which scores range from 0 to 60, with higher scores showing greater dependence. After adjustment for differences at baseline, the mean difference was 0.38, slightly but not significantly favouring the comparator group receiving treatment as usual. The 95% confidence interval ran from –0.89 to 1.65 (p = 0.56). There was no evidence that more intensive care packages in later-stage dementia were more effective than basic care. However, formal home care appeared to help keep people at home. Staff recommended informal care that cost 88% of formal care, but for informal carers this ratio was only 62%. People with dementia preferred social and recreational activities, and carers preferred respite care and regular home care. The DESCANT intervention is probably not cost-effective in early-stage dementia, and intensive care packages are probably not cost-effective in later-stage dementia. From the perspective of the third sector, intermediate intensity packages were cheaper but less effective. Certain elements may be driving these results, notably reduced use of carers’ groups.

Limitations

Our chosen outcome measures may not reflect subtle outcomes valued by people with dementia.

Conclusions

Several approaches preferred by people with dementia and their carers have potential. However, memory aids aiming to affect daily living activities in early-stage dementia or intensive packages compared with basic care in later-stage dementia were not clinically effective or cost-effective.

Future work

Further work needs to identify what people with dementia and their carers prefer and develop more sensitive outcome measures.

Study registration

Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN12591717. The evidence synthesis is registered as PROSPERO CRD42014008890.

Funding

This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Programme Grants for Applied Research programme and will be published in full in Programme Grants for Applied Research; Vol. 9, No. 6. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.

The socioeconomic burden of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy

BACKGROUND

Promising genetic therapies are being investigated in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). However, the current cost of illness is largely unknown.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed at determining the socioeconomic burden of FSHD.

METHODS

Adult patients with FSHD from the Dutch FSHD registry were invited to complete a questionnaire on medical consumption, work productivity and health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) using the EQ-5D-5L. Associated costs were calculated from a societal perspective. A generalized linear model was fitted to the data to investigate whether level of mobility was related to annual costs of illness.

RESULTS

172 patients with FSHD completed the questionnaire (response rate 65%). The per-patient annual direct medical costs of FSHD were estimated at €12,077, direct non-medical costs at €9179 and indirect costs at €5066, adding up to a total cost of illness of €26,322 per patient per year. The direct costs of illness were €21,256, approximately five times higher than the mean per-capita health expenditures in the Netherlands. Major cost-driving factors were formal home care and informal care. A decreased level of mobility was associated with higher direct costs of illness. HR-QoL was significantly reduced in patients with FSHD with a median health utility value of 0.63.

CONCLUSIONS

We show that FSHD is associated with substantial direct and indirect socioeconomic costs as well as a reduction in HR-QoL. These findings are important for health care decision makers and aids in allocation of research funds and evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of novel therapies.

Demographic, health, and economic transitions and the future care burden

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of infections and deaths worldwide, forced schools to suspend classes, workers to work from home, many to lose their livelihoods, and countless businesses to close. Throughout this crisis, families have had to protect, comfort and care for their children, their elderly and other members. While the pandemic has greatly intensified family care responsibilities for families, unpaid care work has been a primary activity of families even in normal times. This paper estimates the future global need for caregiving, and the burden of that need that typically falls on families, especially women. It takes into account projected demographic shifts, health transitions, and economic changes in order to obtain an aggregate picture of the care need relative to the potential supply of caregiving in low-, middle- and high-income countries. This extensive margin of the future care burden, however, does not capture the weight of that burden unless the quantity and quality of care time per caregiver are taken into account. Adjusting for care time given per caregiver, the paper incorporates data from time-use surveys, illustrating this intensive margin of the care burden in three countries that have very different family and economic contexts-Ghana, Mongolia, and South Korea. Time-use surveys typically do not provide time data for paid care services, so the estimates depend only on the time intensity of family care. With this caveat, the paper estimates that the care need in 2030 would require the equivalent of one-fifth to two-fifths of the paid labor force, assuming 40 weekly workhours. Using the projected 2030 mean wage for care and social service workers to estimate the hypothetical wage bill for these unpaid caregivers if they were paid, we obtain a value equivalent to 16 to 32 percent of GDP in the three countries.

Can the Consideration of Societal Costs Change the Recommendation of Economic Evaluations in the Field of Rare Diseases? An Empirical Analysis

OBJECTIVES

To analyze whether the adoption of a societal perspective would alter the results and conclusions of economic evaluations for rare disease-related healthcare technologies.

METHODS

A search strategy involving all the active substances considered as orphan drugs by the European Medicines Agency plus a list of 76 rare diseases combined with economic-related terms was conducted on Medline and the Cost-Effectiveness Registry from the beginning of 2000 until November 2018. We included studies that considered quality-adjusted life years as an outcome, were published in a scientific journal, were written in English, included informal care costs or productivity losses, and separated the results according to the applied perspective.

RESULTS

We found 14 articles that fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Productivity losses were considered in 12 studies, the human capital approach being the method most frequently used. Exclusively, informal care was considered in 2 articles, being valued through the opportunity cost method. The 14 articles selected resulted in 26 economic evaluation estimations, from which incremental cost-utility ratio values changed from cost-effective to dominant in 3 estimates, but the consideration of societal costs only modified the authors' conclusion in 1 study.

CONCLUSIONS

The presence of societal costs in the economic evaluation of rare diseases did not affect the conclusions of the studies except in a single specific case. In those studies where the societal perspective was considered, we did not find significant changes in the economic evaluation results due to the higher costs of treatments and the low quality-adjusted life-years gained.

The Burden of Spinal Muscular Atrophy on Informal Caregivers

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is one of the most common severe hereditary diseases of infancy and early childhood. The progression of this illness causes a high degree of disability; hence, a significant burden is experienced by individuals with this disease and their families. We analyzed the time taken to care for patients suffering from SMA in European countries and the burden on their informal caregivers. We designed a cross-sectional study recording data from France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The primary caregivers completed a self-administered questionnaire that included questions about the time of care, The Zarit Burden Interview, type of SMA and socio-demographic characteristics. Multivariate analyses were used to study the associations between the type of SMA, time of care and burden supported by informal caregivers. The caregivers provided 10.0 h (SD = 6.7) per day of care (the principal caregivers provided 6.9 h, SD = 4.6). The informal caregivers of patients with type I SMA had a 36.3 point higher likelihood (p < 0.05) of providing more than 10 h of care per day in comparison with caregivers of patients with type III SMA. The severity of the disease was associated with more time of care and a higher burden on the caregivers.

Patients' productivity losses and informal care costs related to ischemic stroke: a French population-based study

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Large societal costs of stroke should not be ignored. We aimed to estimate patients' productivity losses and informal care costs during the first year after ischemic stroke.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was performed within the STROKE69 regional population-based cohort study. At 1 year post-stroke, each patient and the corresponding main informal caregiver received questionnaires followed by a telephone interview if necessary. Time losses were valued using the human capital approach and proxy good method for patients with and without a professional activity, respectively.

RESULTS

Among the 222 patients with ischemic stroke (58% men; mean age 68 years; and 86% with a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of <3 at 3 months), 54%, 32%, and 25% received informal, formal, and both cares, respectively. Among the 108 main informal caregivers, 63% were women, 74% lived with the patient, and 57% were retired or unemployed. The mean cost of productivity losses was estimated at €7589 ± €12 305 per patient in the first post-stroke year with 5.4%, 71.2%, and 23.4% of these being attributed to presenteeism, absenteeism, and leisure time, respectively. Informal care was given at an average of 25 h/week. The annual mean estimated total cost of informal care was €10 635 per caregiver.

CONCLUSIONS

Informal care and productivity losses of patients with ischemic stroke during the first post-stroke year represent a significant economic burden for society comparable to direct costs. These costs should be included in economic evaluations with the adoption of a societal perspective to avoid underestimating the societal stroke economic burden.

Head-to-Head Comparison of the Psychometric Properties of 3 Carer-Related Preference-Based Instruments

OBJECTIVES

To compare the psychometric properties of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for carers (ASCOT-Carer), the Carer Experience Scale (CES), and the Care-related Quality of Life (CarerQol) to inform the choice of instrument in future studies.

METHODS

Data were derived from a 2018 online survey of informal carers in Australia. Reliability was assessed via internal consistency (Cronbach alpha, α) and test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC) for respondents who self-reported no change in their quality of life as a carer over 2 weeks. Convergent validity was evaluated via predetermined hypotheses about associations (Spearman's rank correlation) with existing, validated measures. Discriminative validity was assessed based on the ability of the carer-related scores to distinguish between different informal care situations (Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance).

RESULTS

Data from 500 carers were analyzed. The ASCOT-Carer demonstrated a higher degree of internal consistency, possibly due to a unidimensional structure, and test-retest reliability than the CarerQol and CES (α = 0.87, 0.65, 0.59; ICC, 0.87, 0.67, 0.81, respectively). All 3 instruments exhibited convergent validity and detected statistically significant associations between carer-related scores and different informal care situations, except for the CarerQol-7D and sole carer status.

CONCLUSIONS

The ASCOT-Carer, CarerQol, and CES performed reasonably well psychometrically; the ASCOT-Carer exhibited the best psychometric properties overall in this sample of Australian informal carers. Findings should be used in conjunction with consideration of research goals, carer population, targeted carer-related constructs, and prevailing perspectives on the economic evaluation to inform choice of instrument in future studies.

Validation of the Hungarian version of the CarerQol instrument in informal caregivers: results from a cross-sectional survey among the general population in Hungary

Purpose

The CarerQol instrument has been designed and validated as an instrument able to measure both the positive and the negative impacts of caregiving on the quality of life of informal caregivers (CarerQol-7D), as well as their general happiness (CarerQol-VAS). The aim of this study was to assess the construct validity of the CarerQol in the Hungarian context.

Methods

The CarerQol was translated into Hungarian. Subsequently, in a cross-sectional online survey, representative for the general Hungarian population (N = 1000), informal caregivers were identified (N = 149, female 51.2%, mean age 53.2). Clinical, convergent and discriminant validity of the CarerQol were evaluated in relation to the caregivers’ and care recipients’ EQ-5D-5L health status, and caregiving situation characteristics.

Results

Average CarerQol-7D and CarerQol-VAS scores were 76.0 (SD 16.2) and 6.8 (SD 2.3), respectively. CarerQol-7D and CarerQol-VAS scores were significantly correlated with caregiving time (r = − 0.257; − 0.212), caregivers’ EQ-5D-5L scores (r = 0.453; 0.326) and the CarerQol-7D also with care recipients’ EQ-5D-5L scores (r = 0.247). CarerQol-7D scores differed significantly with relevant caregiving characteristics (e.g. nature and severity of care recipients’ health status, sharing household) and both the CarerQol-7D and CarerQol-VAS with the overall care experience.

Conclusion

Our findings confirmed the validity of the Hungarian language version of the CarerQol and support the cross-cultural validity of the instrument. CarerQol-7D scores performed better in distinguishing caregiving situation characteristics than the general happiness measure CarerQol-VAS. Care recipients’ health status was only weakly associated with informal caregivers’ care-related quality of life and happiness. Caregivers’ own health and caregiving circumstances were more strongly associated with these scores.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1007/s11136-020-02662-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Considering the societal perspective in economic evaluations: a systematic review in the case of depression

BACKGROUND

Depressive disorders are associated with a high burden of disease. However, due to the burden posed by the disease on not only the sufferers, but also on their relatives, there is an ongoing debate about which costs to include and, hence, which perspective should be applied. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to examine whether the change between healthcare payer and societal perspective leads to different conclusions of cost-utility analyses in the case of depression.

METHODS

A systematic literature search was conducted to identify economic evaluations of interventions in depression, launched on Medline and the Cost-Effectiveness Registry of the Tufts University using a ten-year time horizon (2008-2018). In a two-stepped screening process, cost-utility studies were selected by means of specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Subsequently, relevant findings was extracted and, if not fully stated, calculated by the authors of this work.

RESULTS

Overall, 53 articles with 92 complete economic evaluations, reporting costs from healthcare payer/provider and societal perspective, were identified. More precisely, 22 estimations (24%) changed their results regarding the cost-effectiveness quadrant when the societal perspective was included. Furthermore, 5% of the ICURs resulted in cost-effectiveness regarding the chosen threshold (2% of them became dominant) when societal costs were included. However, another four estimations (4%) showed the opposite result: these interventions were no longer cost-effective after the inclusion of societal costs.

CONCLUSIONS

Summarising the disparities in results and applied methods, the results show that societal costs might alter the conclusions in cost-utility analyses. Hence, the relevance of the perspectives chosen should be taken into account when carrying out an economic evaluation. This systematic review demonstrates that the results of economic evaluations can be affected by different methods available for estimating non-healthcare costs.

The Economic Impact and Health-Related Quality of Life of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. An Analysis across Europe

Background: this study aimed to estimate the economic impact and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in three European countries. It was used a cross-sectional study carried out in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Data were collected from July 2015 to November 2015. Healthcare costs (hospitalizations, emergencies, medical tests, drugs used, visits to general practitioners (GPs) and specialists, medical material and healthcare transport), and non-healthcare costs (social services and informal care) were identified and valued. EuroQol instruments, the Zarit interview, and the Barthel Index were also used to reflect the burden and the social impact of the disease beyond the cost of healthcare. Results: we included 86 children with SMA, 26.7% of them had Type I, and 73.3% Type II or III. The annual average cost associated with SMA reaches €54,295 in the UK, €32,042 in France and €51,983 in Germany. The direct non-healthcare costs ranged between 79–86% of the total cost and the informal care costs were the main component of these costs. Additionally, people suffering from this disease have a very low health-related quality of life, and there are large differences between countries. Conclusions: SMA has a high socioeconomic impact in terms of healthcare and social costs. It was also observed that the HRQOL of affected children was extremely reduced. The figures shown in this study may help to design more efficient and equitable policies, with special emphasis on the support provided to the families or on non-healthcare aid.

The Economic Impact and Health-Related Quality of Life of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. An Analysis across Europe

Background: this study aimed to estimate the economic impact and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in three European countries. It was used a cross-sectional study carried out in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Data were collected from July 2015 to November 2015. Healthcare costs (hospitalizations, emergencies, medical tests, drugs used, visits to general practitioners (GPs) and specialists, medical material and healthcare transport), and non-healthcare costs (social services and informal care) were identified and valued. EuroQol instruments, the Zarit interview, and the Barthel Index were also used to reflect the burden and the social impact of the disease beyond the cost of healthcare. Results: we included 86 children with SMA, 26.7% of them had Type I, and 73.3% Type II or III. The annual average cost associated with SMA reaches €54,295 in the UK, €32,042 in France and €51,983 in Germany. The direct non-healthcare costs ranged between 79-86% of the total cost and the informal care costs were the main component of these costs. Additionally, people suffering from this disease have a very low health-related quality of life, and there are large differences between countries. Conclusions: SMA has a high socioeconomic impact in terms of healthcare and social costs. It was also observed that the HRQOL of affected children was extremely reduced. The figures shown in this study may help to design more efficient and equitable policies, with special emphasis on the support provided to the families or on non-healthcare aid.

The Economic Impact and Health-Related Quality of Life of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. An Analysis across Europe

Background: this study aimed to estimate the economic impact and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in three European countries. It was used a cross-sectional study carried out in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Data were collected from July 2015 to November 2015. Healthcare costs (hospitalizations, emergencies, medical tests, drugs used, visits to general practitioners (GPs) and specialists, medical material and healthcare transport), and non-healthcare costs (social services and informal care) were identified and valued. EuroQol instruments, the Zarit interview, and the Barthel Index were also used to reflect the burden and the social impact of the disease beyond the cost of healthcare. Results: we included 86 children with SMA, 26.7% of them had Type I, and 73.3% Type II or III. The annual average cost associated with SMA reaches €54,295 in the UK, €32,042 in France and €51,983 in Germany. The direct non-healthcare costs ranged between 79-86% of the total cost and the informal care costs were the main component of these costs. Additionally, people suffering from this disease have a very low health-related quality of life, and there are large differences between countries. Conclusions: SMA has a high socioeconomic impact in terms of healthcare and social costs. It was also observed that the HRQOL of affected children was extremely reduced. The figures shown in this study may help to design more efficient and equitable policies, with special emphasis on the support provided to the families or on non-healthcare aid.

UK General Population Utility Values for the SIDECAR-D Instrument Measuring the Impact of Caring for People With Dementia

OBJECTIVES

Dementia affects many people, with numbers expected to grow as populations age. Many people with dementia receive informal/family/unpaid care, for example, from a spouse or child, which may affect carer quality of life. Measuring the effectiveness of health/social care interventions for carers requires a value measure of the quality-of-life impact of caring. This motivated development of the Scales Measuring the Impact of Dementia on Carers-D (SIDECAR-D) instrument. This study aimed to obtain general population values for SIDECAR-D to aid incorporating the impact of caring in economic evaluation.

METHODS

Members of the UK general public completed a best-worst scaling object case survey, which included the 18 SIDECAR-D items and EQ-5D-3L descriptions. Responses were analyzed using scale-adjusted finite mixture models. Relative importance scores (RISs) for the 18 SIDECAR-D items formed the SIDECAR-D relative scale measuring the relative impact of caring. The SIDECAR-D tariff, on the full health = 1, dead = 0 scale, was derived by rescaling EQ-5D-3L and SIDECAR-D RISs so the EQ-5D-3L RISs equaled anchored valuations of the EQ-5D-3L pits state from a visual analog scale task.

RESULTS

Five hundred ten respondents completed the survey. The model had 2 parameter and 3 scale classes. Additive utility decrements of SIDECAR-D items ranged from -0.05 to -0.162. Utility scores range from 0.95 for someone affirming 1 item to -0.297 for someone affirming all 18.

CONCLUSION

SIDECAR-D is a needs-based scale of the impact on quality of life of caring for someone with dementia, with a valuation tariff to support its use in economic evaluation.

Differentiating needs of informal caregivers of individuals with ALS across the caregiving course: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

Informal caregivers of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) experience a range of needs across the course of the disease. For the provision of adequate support, an examination of the empirical evidence is necessary.

AIM

The purpose of the systematic review was to synthesize evidence of needs of informal caregivers of people with ALS at different stages of caregiving.

METHOD

Systematic review of empirical research on needs of ALS informal caregivers in both English and German, from January 2000 to August 2018. We searched the databases EMBASE, MEDLINE (PubMed), PsycINFO, and CINAHL. Study selection, quality assessment, and data extraction was performed independently. Both quantitative and qualitative studies were included. Of the included studies, we additionally screened citing literature in Google Scholar (citation tracking). We linked the narrative synthesis to four stages of caregiving described by Williams and colleagues and used descriptive inductive thematic analysis to structure data within the stages.

RESULTS

From 3275 abstracts screened, 48 manuscripts met our inclusion criteria. Our data analysis shows that needs differ across the four caregiving stages. While the stage of bereavement (stage 4) includes too little data for separate themes, themes for needs after diagnosis (stage 1), and terminal stage (stage 3) could be specified. As the maintenance (stage 2) stage comprised of themes relevant across the caregiving course, it became an overall stage.

DISCUSSION

Healthcare professionals need to pay attention to current caregiving stages to provide support for informal caregivers. Further research is needed to tease out support needs for the bereavement phase.

Factors associated with health-related quality of life and burden on relatives of older people with multi-morbidity: a dyadic data study

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to identify factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and the burden on the relatives of older people with multi-morbidity.

METHODS

A secondary analysis of baseline data from 296 dyads, including older patients with multimorbidity and their relatives, which were previously collected in a randomized study. The analysis was conducted to select correlated independent variables to enter a final linear regression analysis of two models with different endpoints: the relatives' HRQoL (EQ5D index) and burden (COPE index: Negative impact scale).

RESULTS

Sixteen variables correlated with the relatives' HRQoL, and 15 with the relatives' burden. Both the HRQoL and burden correlated with both patient and relative variables. A high HRQoL was associated with relatives' working/studying. A high burden was associated with caring for an older person with changed behaviour. A low burden was associated with the relatives' high scores on positive values of caring, quality of support and HRQoL.

CONCLUSION

Older persons and their relatives should be considered as a unit in the development of support of older people in order to increase the health and quality of life of both groups. To support and protect relatives from a high burden, potential measures could include improving the relative's HRQoL and strengthening their ability to find positive values in care and strengthening reliable and good support from others. The relatives' HRQoL explained the variation in the burden. However, the burden did not explain the variation in the HRQoL, which suggests that the relatives' HRQoL is not so readily affected by their burden, whereas the relatives' HRQoL can influence their burden. The variables used in the regression analyses where chosen to reflect important aspects of the relatives' and older persons' situations. The final models explained 38% of the variation in the relatives' burden but only 10% of the variation in their HRQoL. This could be important to consider when choosing outcome assessments in future studies.

Validity and Responsiveness of Preference-Based Quality-of-Life Measures in Informal Carers: A Comparison of 5 Measures Across 4 Conditions

OBJECTIVES

Carer quality-of-life (QoL) effects are recommended for inclusion in economic evaluations, but little is known about the relative performance of different types of QoL measures with carers. This study evaluated the validity and responsiveness of 3 care-related QoL measures (the Carer Experience Scale [CES], CarerQoL-7D, and ASCOT-Carer), 1 health-related QoL measure (the EQ-5D-5L), and 1 generic QoL measure (the ICECAP-A).

METHODS

Validity and responsiveness were assessed in a UK sample of informal carers of adults with dementia, stroke, mental illness, or rheumatoid arthritis. A questionnaire containing the 5 QoL measures was posted to carers identified through the Family Resources Survey (N = 1004). Hypotheses regarding the anticipated associations between constructs related to the QoL of carers were tested to investigate construct validity and responsiveness.

RESULTS

Each measure exhibited some level of construct validity. In general, larger effect sizes and stronger associations were detected for the ASCOT-Carer and ICECAP-A measures in the pooled sample and across all conditions. The 5 measures did not exhibit clear responsiveness to changes over a 12-month period in care recipient health status or hours of care provided per week.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study provide initial evidence of the validity of care-related, health-related, and generic QoL (capability) measures in informal carers of adults with 4 highly prevalent conditions. Care-related measures were not always more sensitive to constructs associated with QoL of carers compared with generic measures. The performance of the ICECAP-A was comparable with that of the best-performing care-related measure, the ASCOT-Carer.

Development of Population Tariffs for the CarerQol Instrument for Hungary, Poland and Slovenia: A Discrete Choice Experiment Study to Measure the Burden of Informal Caregiving

BACKGROUND

The CarerQol instrument can be used in economic evaluations to measure the care-related quality of life of informal caregivers. Tariff sets are available for Australia, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to develop tariff sets for the CarerQol instrument for Hungary, Poland and Slovenia and to compare these with the existing value sets.

METHODS

Discrete-choice experiments were carried out in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. Data were collected through an online survey between November 2018 and January 2019, using representative samples of 1000 respondents per country. Tariffs were calculated from coefficient estimates from panel mixed multinomial logit models with random parameters.

RESULTS

All seven CarerQol domains contributed significantly to the utility associated with different caregiving situations. Attributes valued highest were 'physical health' (tariffs for no problems were 15.6-21.8), 'mental health' (18.1-18.9) and 'fulfilment' (16.3-22.9). Value sets were comparable across the countries, although in Poland 'a lot of fulfilment' was valued higher (22.9) than in Hungary (16.3) and Slovenia (17.1). Compared with existing value sets, in the three Central European countries, 'fulfilment' was more important, whereas 'financial problems' were less important.

CONCLUSION

For the first time in the Central and Eastern European region, country-specific tariffs are now available for the Hungarian, Polish and Slovenian versions of the CarerQol instrument. This facilitates inclusion of the impact of informal care in economic evaluations. Our results can be used to develop and evaluate country-specific health policy strategies to support informal caregivers. The differences found in informal care preferences highlight the limited transferability of CarerQol tariffs across European regions.

Shadow and extended shadow cost sharing associated to informal long-term care: the case of Spain

BACKGROUND

A large part of the long-term care is provided by non-professional caregivers, generally without any monetary payment but a value economic of time invested. The economic relevance of informal caregivers has been recognized in Spain; however, public provision may still be scarce. The objective of this paper is to estimate the economic burden associated with informal long-term care that should assume the families through a new concept of cost sharing that consider opportunity costs of time provided by informal caregivers.

METHODS

The study sample includes all dependent adults in Spain. Socioeconomic information and the number of hours of informal care was collected through the Spanish Disability and Dependency Survey. The terms of shadow and extended shadow cost sharing were defined as the difference between the maximum potential amount of money that families could receive for the provision of informal care and the amount that actually they received and the value of informal care time with respect to the amount received, respectively.

RESULTS

53.87% of dependent persons received an economic benefit associated to informal care. The average weekly hours of care were 71.59 (92.62 without time restrictions). Shadow cost sharing amounted to, on average, two thirds, whereas the State financed the remaining third. In terms of extended shadow cost sharing, the State financed between 3% and 10% of informal care provided by caregivers.

CONCLUSIONS

This study reveals the deficient support received for the provision of informal care in Spain. More than 90% of informal care time is not covered by the economic benefits that families receive from the State.

Intergenerational familial care: Shaping future care policies for older adults

An increasingly ageing society together with concerns about sustainability of old-age benefits call for reforming the care structure of many western welfare states. However, finding an acceptable balance between the formal care provided by institutions and informal care provided by family members is a delicate policy choice with profound ethical implications. In this respect, literature on intergenerational familial relationships can offer insights to inform policymaking in this field and help resolve the ethical concerns that excessive reliance on informal caregiving might entail. In this contribution, we start by presenting - with Switzerland as a case study - the challenges of the current care structure and illustrate some of the ethical issues that reshaping the balance between formal and informal care raises. We then review and analyse available theoretical literature on intergenerational familial relationships and present three dimensions that underpin such relationships: ethical, theoretical and practical. Based on our analysis, we provide two recommendations to inform policymaking on how to support care needs of the elderly and set an ethically acceptable balance between formal and informal care when familial generations are involved.

Myocardial infarction: Economic, health, and social impacts on informal caregivers

OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study was to measure the economic impact of informal care (IC) on caregivers assisting myocardial infarction (MI) survivors in France. Health and social impacts were also described.

METHODS

Data from the prospective 2008 Health and Disabilities Households Survey (Enquête Handicap-Santé), carried out among the French general population, were used to obtain information about patients with MI and their informal caregivers. To estimate the approximate monetary value of IC, three methods were used: the proxy good method, opportunity cost method (OCM), and contingent valuation method (CVM). A multivariate analysis was performed to determine the associations of the IC duration and the existence of professional care with the health indicators stated by caregivers.

RESULTS

The analysis included data from 147 caregivers. The mean value of IC ranged from €9,679 per year using the CVM to €11,288 per year using the OCM (p > .05). The mean willingness to pay for an additional hour of IC was €10.9 (SD = 8.3). A total of 46.2 percent of caregivers reported that IC negatively affected theirs physical condition, and 46.3 percent reported that it negatively affected their psychological health. In addition, 40.1 percent declared that caregiving activity made them anxious and 38.8 percent stated they felt alone. Associations were identified between the duration of IC and feeling the need to be replaced, feeling alone and making sacrifices (p < .05).

CONCLUSIONS

Informal caregiver burden may be recognized in health technology assessment in order not to underestimate the cost of strategies and to facilitate the comparability of cost-effectiveness outcomes between studies.