The indirect costs of depression on the Portuguese population in 2014 and 2019

• Autor(a) principal: Gonçalves, Patrício José Bastos
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/154170
• topic: Absenteeism; Depressive Disorder/economics; Depressive Disorder/epidemiology; Adult; Absentismo; Doença depressiva/economia; Doença depressiva/epidemiologia; Adultos; Portugal; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Outras Ciências Sociais

ABSTRACT - Depression is a highly prevalent and very disabling disease. Different factors may contribute to its development and, even in mild cases, depression causes a loss of productivity and generates high indirect costs to society. Literature on the Portuguese context is scarce and not up to date. This study intended to provide additional and updated information on the indirect costs of depression due to absenteeism and on disease prevalence in the years of 2014 and 2019 for the adult population. The study used data from the population-based National Health Surveys of 2014 and 2019 to study the prevalence, risk factors and association of depression to work absence. The indirect costs were estimated based on these data and on the average monthly earnings in Portugal from the Instituto Nacional de Estatística. The prevalence of depression in the adult Portuguese inhabitants increased from 2014 to 2019 both in the general (13.7 vs 15.1%) and working populations (7.8 vs 9.2%). Having depression represented an additional work absence of 10.3 to 33.0 days in 2014 and between 15.2 to 41.0 days in 2019. The mean individual excess cost related to depression varied between 535.12 and 1,716.09 EUR in 2014 and between 852.45 and 2,291.11 EUR in 2019. These values may represent 163-524 million EUR in 2014 and 294-790 million EUR in 2019 when considering the Portuguese workforce. These results demonstrate the importance of an intervention to improve mental health care to the Portuguese society and implement cost-effective measures.