Vad kostar depression och ångest samhället? en kostnadssammanställning för Sverige

Abstract

Mental illness is a highly topical problem for which the attention does not seem to abate. This thesis is a cost of illness study focused on 15 diagnoses within the psychiatrically classified ITC-codes, where depression, anxiety and stress constitute the majority of the cases. The costs for these diagnoses in Sweden have been summarized for the years 2006 and 2016. Further on the costs have been calculated through a top-down perspective and an incidence-perspective has been used when calculating some of the indirect costs. The data has been obtained through Swedish authorities. The result shows that the indirect costs account for the majority of the costs for both years and that the costs have decreased in 2016 compared to 2006, although this does not necessarily mean a decreasing problem with mental illness. On the contrary, it discusses the fact that the number of patients have doubled, the medical use has increased, costs of healthcare have risen and the cost for shorter sick leave has had a sharp increase. The reason for the decreasing total costs seem to be due to more regulated and decreasing sickness benefit payments, which is by far the most costly area in the cost summary.