Will Caregivers Pay For Time To Themselves?

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University used comparable studies to show that caregivers are willing to pay for the Tailored Activity Program (TAP) which is designed to reduce caregiver burden.


Caregiver programs often fall outside the scope of health care benefits, so researchers used a unique approach to examine the value of TAP to dementia patients and their families. Willingness to pay estimates from similar dementia-related intervention studies were applied to TAP's outcome measures: reductions in caregiver hours "on duty" and hours "doing things" for individuals with dementia. The researchers used these data to estimate the probability of TAP being cost effective to patients and their families based on their willingness to pay for these services.


TAP has proven to help individuals with dementia and their caregivers, but no research had been done regarding the cost-effectiveness of the program until now. The recent study, "Willingness to Pay for a Caregiving Intervention," published in Value in Health, concludes that using willingness to pay values from other studies to assess the value of interventions is a feasible approach when services are not presently reimbursed through health care benefits. The study was conducted by Eric Jutkowitz BA, Laura T. Pizzi PharmD, MPH, and Laura N. Gitlin PhD, of Thomas Jefferson University.


TAP's initial pilot randomized trial was completed in 2006; there is a pending grant to look at it on a larger scale.



While cost effectiveness analyses are now routinely being performed for new and more expensive drugs and medical devices, these studies have rarely been conducted for patient support programs," says Pizzi. "It's imperative that we do this work in order to understand the value of these programs to dementia patients, their families and healthcare decision makers-particularly given the increasing importance of dementia in our aging population."


Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 5,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide.


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ISPOR