Abstract Objectives The prevalence of mental health disorders globally is increasing, and contemplative practices (such as meditation/mindfulness) are recommended by many health professionals to address this issue. These practices now need to be carefully evaluated for safety, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness. We aimed to investigate key data to inform future economic evaluations in this area via a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of the Australian population. Method We compared quality-of-life scores across groups using regression analysis to account for group differences. Self-reported health service use (general, mental, complementary) was compared across groups (not needed, unmet need, used service) and index-scores. Self-reported practice cost estimates were investigated across contemplative practices (e. g. meditation, yoga) for a range of cost types (e. g. classes, travel, donations). Results The sample included 445 meditators, 1034 other contemplative practitioners and 586 non-practitioners, with large demographic differences between groups. Unadjusted quality-of-life scores were significantly higher for non-practitioners compared to practitioners. Differences were maintained when demographic variables were added to the model, but not when mental health service use was included as a covariate. We estimated that 8. 9% of the sample had unmet mental-health service need and that this was highest in the meditation group (13. 9%) compared to the non-practitioner group (2. 4%). The average cost of any contemplative practice (including meditation) was estimated at 1, 281 per person. Conclusions This study provides preliminary evidence on potentially suitable variables for estimating costs and effects for conducting cost-effectiveness studies of contemplative practices. EQ-HWB-9 index scores performed well as an outcome measure in this population. Preregistration The initial study was preregistered at Open Science Framework osf. io/etkh4. The current paper is additional to the preregistered research questions.
Bailey et al. (Wed,) studied this question.