Cost-Utility Analysis of Methadone Maintenance Treatment: A Methodological Approach

Abstract

Economic considerations influence the substance user treatment system. These considerations influence who gets treatment and for how long, as well as determining what services they receive and in what setting. Current medical literature argues that maintenance treatment reduces risk-taking behavior, such as injection drug use and needle sharing. Treatment also reduces the mortality associated with abuse of opiates by injection and can cause decreases in costs incurred by the criminal justice system and social services agencies. This suggests the need for complex economic evaluations of a maintenance treatment to find out the optimum treatment program. This paper describes methods of economic evaluation in healthcare and reviews the methodology of cost–utility analysis in economic evaluations of methadone maintenance treatment.

Keywords:

• maintenance treatment
• economic evaluation
• quality of life
• cost accounting
• cost–utility analysis

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giedrius Vanagas

Giedrius Vanagas, Ph.D., M.P.H., graduated from Kaunas University of Medicine (Kaunas, Lithuania). He currently working at the Hospital of Kaunas University of Medicine as Manager and at the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Kaunas University of Medicine as Assistant Professor of Public Health. His main scientific and research interests are health economics, epidemiology, and disease prevention.

Zilvinas Padaiga

Zilvinas Padaiga, Ph.D., M.P.H., graduated from Kaunas University of Medicine (Kaunas, Lithuania). He is Currently working at the Kaunas University of Medicine as Vice-rector for Academic Affairs and at the Department of Preventive Medicine as Professor of Public Health. His main research interests are social and economical inequalities in health and healthcare, environmental risk factors for type I diabetes mellitus in childhood, and health human resource planning.

Eugenijus Bagdonas

Eugenijus Bagdonas, Ph.D., graduated from Kaunas University of Technology (Kaunas, Lithuania). He is currently working at the Kaunas University of Technology as a Professor of Business Administration and is the Head of the Business Administration Department, also lecturing on health economics at Kaunas University of Medicine. His main scientific interests are on health economics, hospital cost accounting, and computer business games and simulations.