28 DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF EARLY INTERVENTION PLAN FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA CONSIDERING ECONOMIC FACTORS
Authors: Li Jiangnan , Li* Jia 
Published: February 2025

Background

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, and early intervention can significantly alleviate long-term cognitive, emotional, and social dysfunction in patients, and improve their quality of life. However, many early intervention programs currently focus too much on clinical outcomes and overlook economic considerations. This deficiency results in some patients being unable to receive sustained treatment support due to economic burden, thereby affecting the accessibility and sustainability of interventions. Therefore, in order to explore the comprehensive clinical effects and economic feasibility, research and design early intervention programs suitable for patients with schizophrenia, and verify the comprehensive effects of different intervention modes on symptom improvement, social function recovery, and economic costs through quantitative analysis, aiming to provide scientific basis for mental health interventions under limited resource conditions.

Methods

120 patients with early schizophrenia were included in the study and randomly divided into three groups: standard intervention group, economically efficient intervention group, and intensive intervention group. The standard intervention group adopted conventional treatment methods, the economically efficient intervention group optimized resource allocation while maintaining clinical efficacy, and the intensive intervention group focused on investing in high cost treatment to pursue maximum clinical improvement. The intervention period is 12 months, and patients’ clinical symptoms (measured by positive and negative symptom scales), social functioning (measured by overall functional assessment scales), and cognitive abilities are evaluated quarterly, while relevant economic cost data is recorded. Use a generalized linear model to analyze the differences in clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness among the three groups, and calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio.

Results

The situation of each group of patients was analyzed, and the results are shown in Table 1. According to Table 1, the economically efficient intervention group outperformed the standard intervention group in terms of symptom improvement rate and social function enhancement rate, with a 32.8% decrease in positive and negative symptom scale scores and an 18.2% increase in overall functional assessment. And the average treatment cost per patient decreased by 23.5% compared to the latter. The clinical effect of the strengthened intervention group was the most significant, with a symptom improvement rate of 38.9% and a social function improvement rate of 21.7%. However, the average treatment cost was 48% higher than that of the economically efficient group. In addition, the economically efficient intervention group has the best incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, demonstrating good resource utilization efficiency

Discussion

The research results indicate that incorporating economic factors into the development of early intervention plans for schizophrenia is of great significance. The economically efficient intervention model significantly reduces treatment costs while improving clinical symptoms, providing a scientific basis for optimizing mental health intervention strategies under limited resources. Future research can further explore the long-term effects of such intervention models and their generalizability in different populations.