Analysis Group Team Coauthors a Study of Mental Health Care Pathways for Patients Suffering from Depression and Suicidal Thoughts
June 8, 2021
Writing in a special edition of PharmacoEconomics dedicated to major depressive disorder (MDD), a team of researchers from Analysis Group and Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC published their findings on care pathways for US adults with MDD and acute suicidal ideation or behavior (MDSI). The study provides new insights into heterogeneity among this subset of MDD patients. The Analysis Group team was led by Managing Principal Patrick Lefebvre, Vice President Dominic Pilon, and Manager Maryia Zhdanava.
Using the IBM MarketScan® Research Databases and a mathematical algorithm, the study team identified three distinct clusters of patients with MDSI based on characteristics of care before the suicide-related event. They then described care pathways (specialized mental health service use, pharmacotherapy use, other health care resource use, and costs) for each cluster after the suicide-related event.
The team found that the patients with MDSI who had the least exposure to health care before a suicide-related event also received the least care post-event. This suggests that an opportunity exists to optimize treatment and follow-up with mental health services. Knowledge of the differences in real-world care pathways for the different patient types may aid clinicians and health systems in designing targeted treatment strategies.
Read the special edition of PharmacoEconomics