Cost consequences analysis of early vocational rehabilitation compared with usual care for stroke survivors

Abstract

Objective: To compare costs and consequences of Early Stroke Specialist Vocational Rehabilitation (ESSVR) with usual care in working age, stroke survivors over 12 months.
Design: an economic evaluation nested within the pragmatic, multi-centre, randomised, controlled RETurn to work After stroKE (RETAKE) study.
Setting: Twenty-one English and Welsh NHS hospital-based stroke units. A UK NHS and Personal Social Services perspective was taken in the base-case and a wider perspective (participant, family, employer and other public services) in a secondary analysis.
Participants: 583 stroke survivors age ≥18 years (mean 54.0 years, 69% male).
Interventions: Participants were randomised to ESSVR, an early, individually tailored (in content, dose, intensity and duration) intervention, plus usual care or usual care alone.
Main measures: Disease-specific resource-use data and EQ-5D-5L (health-related quality of life) collected at baseline, three, six and 12 months. Resource-use items were valued using unit costs in UK£ 2021/22. EQ-5D-5L was used to estimate Quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). If ESSVR was found effective, an incremental cost-utility analysis was planned, otherwise a cost-consequence analysis.
Results: The clinical study found no evidence of a between-group difference in the proportion of participants returning to work at 12 months. This, and the level of missing data, means a cost-consequence analysis is reported. Using imputed data, ESSVR plus usual care is estimated to be more expensive with slightly higher QALYs compared with usual
care.
Conclusions: ESSVR is unlikely to be considered cost-effective over 12 months, which fits with the clinical finding of no between-group difference in return-to-work rates post-stroke.
Clinical trial registration information:
The ISRCTN registry: ISRCTN12464275
https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN12464275