OBJECTIVES: To evaluate cost-effectiveness of an in-home respite care program in addition to standard community-based dementia care to support informal caregivers of persons with dementia compared with standard community-based dementia care.

METHODS: An age-dependent decision-analytic Markov model was applied from a third-party payer and a societal perspective projecting results of a quasi experimental study over a time horizon of 5 years assuming a repetition of the program every 6 months. Additionally, to deal with uncertainty and to test robustness of the model scenario, one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted.

RESULTS: Implementing the program resulted in a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gain of 0.14 in favor of the invention group compared with controls and an incremental cost of 1270€ from the third-party payer perspective and of 1220€ from the societal perspective. Next, an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of 9042€/QALY and of 8690€/QALY was found in the base case, from the third-party payer perspective and the societal perspective, respectively. The scenario, one-way sensitivity, and probabilistic analyses demonstrated robustness of the base-case results.

CONCLUSIONS: This cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that an in-home respite care program in addition to standard community-based dementia care is a cost effective approach compared with standard community-based dementia care only. These findings provide more insight into the value of such services for the patient, the caregiver, and for society.