Introduction: We examined the cost-effectiveness of smoking cessation integrated with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Methods: Smoking veterans receiving care for PTSD (N = 943) were randomized to care integrated with smoking cessation versus referral to a smoking cessation clinic. Smoking cessation services, health care cost and utilization, quality of life, and biochemically-verified abstinence from cigarettes were assessed over 18-months of follow-up. Clinical outcomes were combined with literature on changes in smoking status and the effect of smoking on health care cost, mortality, and quality of life in a Markov model of cost-effectiveness over a lifetime horizon. We discounted cost and outcomes at 3% per year and report costs in 2010 US dollars.
Results: The mean of smoking cessation services cost was $1286 in those randomized to integrated care and $551 in those receiving standard care (P < .001). There were no significant differences in the cost of mental health services or other care. After 12 months, prolonged biochemically verified abstinence was observed in 8.9% of those randomized to integrated care and 4.5% of those randomized to standard care (P = .004). The model projected that Integrated Care added $836 in lifetime cost and generated 0.0259 quality adjusted life years (QALYs), an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $32 257 per QALY. It was 86.0% likely to be cost-effective compared to a threshold of $100 000/QALY.
Conclusions: Smoking cessation integrated with treatment for PTSD was cost-effective, within a broad confidence region, but less cost-effective than most other smoking cessation programs reported in the literature.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00118534.
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco 2015. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.