OBJECTIVES: Assessing economic burden of schizophrenia (inpatient and outpatient) in Algeria.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study to estimate annual economic costs of schizophrenia in Algeria in real-life setting. Investigators were psychiatric hospital throughout Algeria (east (3), wester (3), central (7)). Inclusion criteria were - Adult, 18 years of age or older - Patient with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, according to WHO ICD10 criteria, for at least 12 months. Data have been collected during the inclusion visit on the last 12 months before inclusion for the management of schizophrenia, patient characteristics and disease history as well as resources consumed (hospitalizations, visits, drugs, non-pharmacological treatment, transport, sick leaves, social support and other informal healthcare expenditures). The Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) has been used to assess the severity of schizophrenia. Costs were evaluated from a societal perspective (DA 2020) and their determinants were revealed by a regression model.

RESULTS: 1 185 patients (77% male) have been consecutively recruited by psychiatrists of 13 hospitals during a 3-month period in 2019. Patients have a mean age of 25,7 years at diagnosis, with a high proportion of family history of schizophrenia (38,5%) and toxic consumption (43%). Cumulative expenditure over one year for drug treatments related to the disease and its consequences exclusively amounts to 128 012 178 DA (€ 880 959), i.e. an average of 841 154 DA (€ 5 789) per patient. This expenditure is positively correlated with age and patients with Social Security system. It’s not seem to be statistically related to the severity of the psychiatric impairment assessed by the PANSS score.

CONCLUSIONS: This survey aimed to address the definition of national priorities in Algeria providing a first insight on the economic burden of schizophrenia justifying the need for health interventions in this area.