Conclusion
fibromyalgia, fibromyalgia syndrome
FIBROMYALGIA, FIBROMYALGIA SYNDROME
The proposed multicomponent intervention programme was cost-effective compared with usual care for fibromyalgia, which supports its addition to standard practice in the regional primary care service.LAY ABSTRACTFollowing the gold standard trial design for evaluating healthcare technologies, a health economic evaluation was conducted on a new multidisciplinary intervention programme for patients with fibromyalgia syndrome in primary care centres in Catalonia, Spain. Estimations of direct healthcare and social costs were assessed jointly with the effect on quality of life, in order to compare the new intervention with usual clinical care. The results showed that the programme proved its cost-utility for society, as patients’ perceived health improvements outweighed the cost increase, according to the maximum price accepted for an extra unit of quality of life in Spain. These findings were verified when cost estimations were corrected with the actual health expenditure. In addition, the intervention implementation scheme demonstrated cost-saving potential by increasing participants’ session attendance to at least 66%. Therefore, patients and society could benefit from this new therapeutic strategy for fibromyalgia if adopted by the regional services portfolio.