PMH37 Do education costs matter? A systematic literature review of the economic impact of psychosocial problems on the education sector

Objectives: Psychosocial problems lead to costs in the health care sector but also in the education sector among other. As psychosocial problems develop during the critical period of establishing educational trajectories, education costs are particularly relevant in the context of psychosocial problems among children and adolescents. This study aimed to gain insights into the methods used for the inclusion of education costs in health economics studies and into the proportion of the education costs in relation the total costs associated with a condition or an intervention.

Methods: PubMed, Embase, SSCI, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ERIC, and Econlit were systematically searched for economic evaluations of mental health, psychosocial, and educational interventions and cost-of-illness studies of mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders, conducted from a societal perspective in the population of children and adolescents.

Results: Of 6,248 screened titles and abstracts, 41 articles were included in the analysis. The most common cost items were “special education”, “school absence”, and “additional educational support”. A variety of methods were employed for the identification, measurement and/or valuation of education costs. The proportion of education costs to the total costs of condition/intervention ranged from 0% to 67% with the mean being 18.6%.

Conclusions: Since education costs can constitute a significant proportion of the total costs of an intervention or condition, including them in health economics studies might be important in informing optimal resource allocation decisions. Although various methods are available for including education costs in health economics studies, further research is needed to develop evidence-based methods for producing comparable estimates.