Background: Two approaches including stroke unit and routine treatment, are used to address stroke patients. Although stroke unit is a new intervention in Iran and its effectiveness has been proven, but there is little information on its costs. It is necessary to utilize the results of the studies of economic evaluation in order to choose the better treatment option between two alternatives. Due to the lack of studies in this field in Iran, the current study was done to compare the cost-effectiveness of stroke unit and routine treatment.
Methods: The present study investigated cost-effectiveness of stroke unit compared with routine treatment from health system perspective. Markov model incorporating three health states of independent, dependent and death for a time horizon of 10 years with a 3-month cycle length was applied. Direct medical and non-medical costs including pharmaceutical and hospital expenses, were calculated based on 2018 data. Quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were taken as the outcome measure. The analysis of cost-effectiveness and sensitivity for uncertain parameters was carried out using TreeAge 2020.
Results: Stroke unit had more costs and QALYs gain in comparison with routine treatment with $1926 per QALY. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that stroke unit cost-effectiveness probability is 77 percent, in the threshold of willingness to pay three times GDP per capita.
Conclusion: Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of stroke unit is far less than the threshold of willingness to pay, indicating the strategy is cost-effective. Therefore, implementing stroke unit in Iran health system leads to optimal use of resources.