The feasibility of cost‐benefit studies of mental health care. An attempt with a Dutch Case Register

Abstract

A cohort of 928 people, aged 20 to 60 years, were entered in a Dutch Case Register for the first time as outpatients during the period from 1974 to 1977. They were each followed up for 1 year in order to identify patterns of care and calculate their cost. The latter was calculated for groups of patients, according to diagnosis and type of service at entry. This approach required registering face-to-face contacts for each patient, and close collaboration with the services involved, to calculate costs.