Mental Health-Related Disability Days and Costs Among Patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression Initiated on Esketamine Nasal Spray and Conventional Therapies in the USA.
Drugs - real world outcomes March 1, 2025 Manish K Jha, Maryia Zhdanava, Aditi Shah et al. 1 citation
Among US adults with treatment-resistant depression, those who started esketamine nasal spray had fewer mental-health-related disability days and lower associated costs six months later compared with the month before starting treatment. In the esketamine group, disability days fell by an average of 0.4 days and costs dropped by $312 per patient per month. Trends for other therapies varied: transcranial magnetic stimulation showed a $123 cost reduction with no change in disability days, second-generation antipsychotic augmentation showed little change, and electroconvulsive therapy was linked to increases in both disability days and costs. The findings suggest esketamine may reduce disability burden, but the study was descriptive and lacked statistical comparisons.