The first 59 weeks were costed separately as they can be regarded as 'set-up' costs.
Bed days were costed separately in this study and so the proportion of each unit cost that was attributable to bed days was estimated and removed in order to avoid double counting.
Nursing time associated with administering components was already included in the bed day unit costs used to cost inpatient length of stay and so was not costed separately.
A few other depression cost studies have included costs for complementary treatment [ 14– 16], but none allow for direct comparison to our study, as these costs were either not presented separately [ 14, 16] or because the only costs for complementary treatment included were costs for spinal manipulation [ 15], which is classified as conventional treatment in Germany.
Assumptions related to cold chain and personnel were not separately costed for the demonstration scenario, but instead based upon published analyses which built upon experience with existing vaccines (e.g. DTP-HepB-Hib) [ 42, 44].
24 However, since productivity costs may vary if different costing methodologies were applied, 25 these costs are reported separately to the other aforementioned costs, in subsequent sensitivity analysis.
Avoidance costs were tabulated separately as increased costs due to the extra water purchased, extrakerosene purchased for boiling and extramoney spent on accessing a toilet facility.
As these accident-related costs are financed separately from disease-related costs in the Swiss health care system, these costs were excluded.
Study drug costs were derived from the trial, whereas all other ICU costs were estimated separately in a Dutch micro-costing study.
