Direct medical cost of bipolar disorder: Insights from the FACE-BD longitudinal cohort

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe chronic psychiatric disorder affecting 0.5 to 1% of the population worldwide. To date, most studies have estimated the cost of BD via information sourced from insurance claims with limited information on clinical characteristics and course of BD. The aims of this study are (i) to estimate the direct healthcare cost associated with BD and to identify contributing factors and (ii) to study the evolution of cost during a two-year follow-up period.

Automated summary

This study aims to estimate the direct healthcare cost associated with bipolar disorder and to study the evolution of cost during a two-year follow-up period. Previous studies have mainly relied on insurance claims data and have limited information on the clinical characteristics and course of bipolar disorder.