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Allowing patients to choose their course of treatment - either psychotherapy or medication - is more economical than assigning a treatment, a new analysis of post-traumatic stress disorder treatments has found. Allowing them to opt for a treatment also provides a higher quality of life.

The study when allowed patients to choose between therapies ended up costing about $1,622 less on average per patient per year compared with patients who were assigned treatment. 

"This is one of the first studies to look at the cost of providing mental health care and comparing different treatments for PTSD," said Lori Zoellner, co-author of the study and director of the University of Washington's Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress, in the press release. "It has tremendous implications for how large health care systems such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs proceed with treating PTSD."

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, with additional funding from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.

"In evaluating how well a treatment works, we seldom pay attention to the role of a patient's preference, although it could be particularly important in mental health treatments," Zoellner said. "Trauma survivors with PTSD often have strong opinions about wanting to talk about the trauma or not in therapy, some believing they really need to talk about it to heal and others really wanting to avoid talking about it. They may experience greater relief when they receive the treatment that they prefer."

When study participants were given a choice, their treatment cost each year an average of $6,156 compared with $7,778 for those assigned a treatment - a difference of approximately $1,622 per patient per year, the press release added.

The analysis has been published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.