Background: In community mental health care, knowledge about costs of care is very limited. Only few studies have related costs to outcome measures.
Method: This German study assesses the cost of psychiatric care of 66 schizophrenic patients during one year of living in the community. Predictors of high cost were identified.
Results: The average cost of comprehensive community care of one patient of the cohort was US$ 363 per week. This was only 43% of the cost of constant long-term care in a psychiatric hospital. Significant predictors of total cost of community care were the number of rehabilitative problems at the beginning and at the end of the study period, the type of accommodation before index hospitalisation and the gender of patients.
Conclusions: Results must be understood in terms of the characteristics of the special patient group and the catchment area we studied and are of high relevance in planning future care.