Background: Rehabilitation of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is associated with various clinical, social and economic outcomes. We aimed to evaluate the cost-utility of MS multidisciplinary rehabilitation in Iran.
Research design and methods: An economic evaluation was conducted using a Markov model designed to reflect the natural course of the disease and interventions. Parameters and variables were extracted from available evidence, and costs and outcomes were calculated from the social perspective. The base-case analysis considered a 5-year time horizon. Costs were estimated based on approved national standards for MS rehabilitation. Sensitivity analyses were also performed.
Results: The average cost of the rehabilitation strategy was higher compared to the non-rehabilitation strategy, but it resulted in higher quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) values. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was found to be $2,845.8 per QALY, indicating that the rehabilitation strategy is cost-effective. In the deterministic sensitivity analysis, extending the time horizon to 10 years made the rehabilitation strategy a dominant choice. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis results were consistent with the base-case findings.
Conclusions: The MS multidisciplinary rehabilitation proved to be a cost-effective strategy; however, the results were sensitive to the input values of the model. Increasing the time horizon increased the probability of rehabilitation being cost-effective.
Keywords: Multiple sclerosis (MS); cost-effectiveness; cost-utility; economic evaluation; rehabilitation.