Naslov
The cost of childhood epilepsy in Croatia

Autori
Prpić, Igor ; Paučić-Kirinčić, Ela ; Fiket, Daniela ; Vukmir-Turković, Biljana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, stručni

Izvornik
Paediatria Croatica / Barišić, Ingeborg - Zagreb : Klinika za dječje bolesti, 2003

Skup
9th Mediterranean meeting of child neurology

Mjesto i datum
Dubrovnik, Hrvatska, 29.05.2003. - 31.05.2003

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Pozvano predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Domaća recenzija

Ključne riječi
epilepsy; cost; children

Sažetak
In Croatia there are no exact data about cost of any chronic disease and thus non for epilepsy. Moreover, attention about cost-benefit ratio and treatment algorithms for most disease is just in process of development. For these reason, we calculated the cost of newly diagnosed epilepsy during the first year of disease. We included in the study all children and adolescents in whom epilepsy was first diagnosed (ILAE classification) at the Department of Pediatrics &laquo ; ; Kantrida&raquo ; ; , at the University Hospital Centre Rijeka, Croatia in the year 1999. The cost was recorded retrospectively for each patient of hospital admission days (included cost of preformed laboratory tests, EEG recording, neuro-radiological examinations, medical consultations, and child psychologist evaluation), antiepileptic treatment and outpatients visits throughout first year of the disease. The cost of epilepsy was calculated by multiplying each resource used (days in hospital, tests, consultations, treatment) by its units cost. Unit cost is defined as the standard Croatian Health care Administration accepted values for each hospital day or diagnostic procedure, expressed in Euros. The estimated cost of epilepsy is 872, 19 Euros per patient per year, of which 74, 6% is the cost of hospital admission, 15.5% of treatment and 9.9% of outpatient’ s visits. We presume that with better organization of the hospital admission cost could be rationalized. Other possibilities for cost reduction are appropriate antiepileptic drugs treatment using valproate as the fist line drug for generalized seizure and as the first drug among the second line drugs for partial seizure. The new generation of AED, which are ore expensive, should be reserved for resistant epilepsy and children who developed side effects while on standard antiepileptic drugs. Regarding the common clinical practice in Croatia, the study results can be considered valuable for the entire county. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study of this nature in Croatia.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Kliničke medicinske znanosti, Javno zdravstvo i zdravstvena zaštita

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