title: Economic evaluations in the Canadian Mental Health System. II: From theory to practice in mental health care.
abstract: This paper follows from a previous paper which described the basic approaches to economic evaluation of health programs. The discussion in this paper builds and discusses the theoretical and practical concerns felt by practitioners and analysts about economic evaluations in mental health care. Two examples of economic evaluations that compare the costs of hospital care and community-based care are presented to illustrate some of the limitations of economic evaluation. Discussion also focuses on the difficulties involved in developing and conducting economic analyses in the mental health field, as well as problems faced in trying to generalize from one study setting to others.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Health Administration, University of Toronto, Ontario.
authors.forename: B J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Fried
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Worthington
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Deber
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000191:economics*; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000191:economics / Q000628:therapy*