Treatment with Paliperidone ER May Be Associated with Significantly Reduced Use of Mental Health...( Separate Analysis Suggests Paliperi...)

Separate Analysis Suggests Paliperidone ER May Impact Employment Status

WASHINGTON, May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Patients receiving paliperidone extended-release tablets (paliperidone ER) spent significantly fewer days in the hospital, had significantly fewer emergency room and psychiatric-related office visits, and fewer psychotherapy sessions, compared with the year before starting treatment, according to a new analysis of data presented at the 161st Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in Washington, D.C.(1)

In the analysis, researchers retrospectively reviewed the charts of 79 of the patients who had participated in any of three multi-center, double-blind, randomized six-week trials of paliperidone ER and placebo, and were then entered into a 12-month open-label extension (OLE) phase. The investigators compared the number of days a patient was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons in the 12 months before being screened for the trial (pre-period) with those in the 12-month OLE phase (post-period) following administration of the first dose of paliperidone ER.(a) Most of the patients (70.9 percent) had received prior antipsychotic medication during the pre-period.

The results showed that patients taking paliperidone ER used significantly fewer healthcare resources after starting on the medication than in the one-year period before entering the trials. Patients had an average of 12 fewer hospital days (P=0.002), 0.3 fewer emergency room visits (P=0.038), two fewer psychiatric-related office visits (P<0.001) and 0.4 fewer psychotherapy sessions (P=0.004).

An economic analysis showed that the average costs savings for the reduced resource use with paliperidone ER was $7,411 per person-year, based on current Federal Medicare per diem base rates and 2007 Medicare unit costs, taking into account psychiatric-related hospitalizations, emergency room visits, psychiatric-related clinic visits and psychotherapy.