Cost‐effectiveness of Electronic‐ and Clinician‐Delivered Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Women in Reproductive Health Centers

AIMS: To determine the cost-effectiveness of electronic- and clinician-delivered SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment) for reducing primary substance use among women treated in reproductive health centers. DESIGN: Cost-effectiveness analysis based on a randomized controlled trial. SETTING: New Haven, CT, USA. PARTICIPANTS: A convenience sample of 439 women seeking routine care in reproductive health centers who used cigarettes, risky amounts of alcohol, illicit drugs or misused prescription medication. INTERVENTIONS: Participants were randomized to enhanced usual care (EUC, n = 151), electronic-delivered SBIRT (e-SBIRT, n = 143) or clinician-delivered SBIRT (SBIRT, n = 145). MEASUREMENTS: The primary outcome was days of primary substance abstinence during the 6-month follow-up period. To account for the possibility that patients might substitute a different drug for their primary substance during the 6-month follow-up period, we also considered the number of days of abstinence from all substances. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves determined the relative cost-effectiveness of the three conditions from both the clinic and patient perspectives. FINDINGS: From a health-care provider perspective, e-SBIRT is likely (with probability greater than 0.5) to be cost-effective for any willingness-to-pay value for an additional day of primary-substance abstinence and an additional day of all-substance abstinence. From a patient perspective, EUC is most likely to be the cost-effective intervention when the willingness to pay for an additional day of abstinence (both primary-substance and all-substance) is less than $0.18 and e-SBIRT is most likely to be the cost-effective intervention when the willingness to pay for an additional day of abstinence (both primary-substance and all-substance) is greater than $0.18. CONCLUSIONS: e-SBIRT could be a cost-effective approach, from both health-care provider and patient perspectives, for use in reproductive health centers to help women reduce substance misuse.