Reduced list costing: some implications for research costs and for costs research

<p>Although few would now argue that an economic perspective is an essential component in mental health research, it is often a costly exercise. For a fully valid cost-effectiveness study, we would advocate collecting data from every study member on all support services they use. However, with the perfect vision that hindsight often brings we can suggest some short-cuts which, if undertaken with caution and with a full understanding of how the results should be used, can reduce the costs of costs evaluations. Such a short-cut also has implications for the breadth of data-collection undertaken and has led us, over time, to refine and reduce the Client Service Receipt Interview (CSRI) whilst ensuring that it continues to elicit the information required to calculate the costs of care. These refinements confer at least two advantages. First, as the burden on the respondent is reduced, the schedule can be used in a variety of data-collection scenarios, removing the requirement for a trained interviewer.

<p><p><p>Second, the process of refining the CSRI has enabled the development of a standardised framework for data-collection which, when used alongside previously developed principles and methodologies for cost-estimation, can be applied in<p><p>international studies to facilitate comparative analyses (Tolley and Gyldmark, 1993).

<p><p><p>This paper will summarise the results of our analyses which identified a 'reduced list' of services comprising those which made up the greatest proportion of the costs of care packages. It continues by describing some of the reductions and refinements to the CSRI that our experience in mental health costs research and these analyses enabled and identifies some methods of data collection currently being tested. The final section of this paper addresses some of the problems that beset international cost comparisons.