German researchers studied clinical outcomes and costs in patients treated with anthroposophic medicine (AM) therapies for chronic conditions in a prospective cohort study involving 141 centres. Eight hundred and ninety-eight outpatients aged 1–75 years referred to AM therapies (art, eurythmy or rhythmical massage, n = 665) or starting AM medical treatment (counselling, medicines, n = 233) were included. Disease severity was assessed independently by physician (disease score) and patient (symptom score), and health-related quality of life (SF-36, KINDL, KITA) after 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months as well as health costs in prestudy year and first study year. Most common indications were mental disorders (32.0%) and musculoskeletal disorders (18.9%). Disease duration at baseline was median 3.0 years [interquartile range (i.q.r.) = 1.0–8.5, mean 6.5 ± 8.4 years]. Median number of AM therapy sessions was 12 (i.q.r. 10–20), median therapy duration was 120 days (i.q.r. 81–195). From baseline to 6-month follow-up, disease score (0–10) improved from 6.40 ± 1.76 to 3.43 ± 2.23, symptom score (0–10) improved from 5.89 ± 1.75 to 3.35 ± 2.09. In adults, SF-36 Physical Component Summary improved from mean 43.34 ± 10.58 at baseline to 47.44 ± 10.32 after 6 months, SF-36 Mental Component Summary improved from 38.83 ± 12.45 to 44.93 ± 10.92. Similar HRQoL improvements were observed in children. All improvements remained stable until 24-month follow-up. Adverse effects from AM therapies occurred in 2.7% (19/712) of patients. Three (0.5%) patients stopped therapy due to adverse effects. Health costs were €3637 per patient in the pre-study year and €3484 in the first study year, a decrease of €152 (4.2%) per patient.