Cost-effectiveness of Treatments for Major Depression in Primary Care Practice

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Abstract
THE RELIANCE on market forces to allocate health care resources has placed more emphasis on understanding the efficiency of health care delivery. At the same time, concerns with quality and health plan accountability have heightened interest in assuring that effective clinical treatments are being used for treatment. Some of the organizations that develop report cards use the treatment of major depression as one of the markers for the quality of care provided within health plans.1-3 Cost-effectiveness provides useful information for programmatic and policy decisions that must balance costs and outcomes of care. This study augments a randomized controlled trial of treatments for major depression within primary care to analyze the cost-effectiveness of 3 clinical strategies.