Schizophrenia is costing Japanese economy £15 billion a year

The FINANCIAL — Schizophrenia is costing the Japanese economy more than £15 billion a year in health care, unemployment and suicides, according to new research.

Japan’s ageing population and the high cost of treating schizophrenia patients is imposing “a tremendous societal burden” on the world’s third-largest economy, say researchers  from Tokyo and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

As an illness, schizophrenia is often overshadowed by depression and anxiety-related disorders, which are far more prevalent in Japan but actually have lower direct costs, according to a new paper recently published in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment.

Schizophrenia is recognised as the most expensive psychiatric disorder in the world in terms of health care expenditure per patient. The number of psychiatric beds per capita in Japan is also approximately four times greater than that in the UK, according to the paper.

The direct costs of schizophrenia in Japan are estimated to be £4.3 billion, which includes health care and medication costs. Of the indirect costs totalling £11 billion – which include unemployment and suicide – schizophrenia costs Japan less than the other two mental illnesses (depression and anxiety disorders), but the overall costs arising from unemployment are much higher, according to LSE.

“With schizophrenia, the costs imposed by unemployment constitute the largest component, whereas for depression and anxiety disorders, absenteeism and loss of productivity are more significant indirect costs,” said Professor Martin Knapp from LSE.

The ratio of all suicides attributed to schizophrenia in Japan is estimated at 9 per cent, equivalent to a cost of about £873 million cost per year.

“Because 40-60 per cent of patients with schizophrenia suffer from the impairment all their lives, Japan’s ageing society is adding to the economic burden,” Professor Knapp said.

“The figures are conservative and the actual cost to Japan is likely to be much higher as a result of a lack of available data,” he added.