Naslov
Direct medical cost of children and adolescents epilepsy at a university setting in Croatia

Autori
Prpić, Igor ; Boban, Marko ; Paučić- Kirinčić, Ela ; Škarpa-Prpić, Ingrid ; Jurjević, Ante ; Babić, Tomislav ; Fiket, Daniela

Izvornik
Collegium antropologicum (0350-6134) 33 (2009), 2; 503-508

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, stručni

Ključne riječi
epilepsy ; cost ; children ; adolescents

Sažetak
Purpose: to study direct medical cost of epilepsy in children and adolescents with health care resource utilisation patterns, as well as, determining the impact of epilepsy type and child’ s age on total costs of treatment. Methods: one- year prospective, prevalence based, “ bottom up” analyses was performed. Sixty-nine (69) children with epilepsy diagnose fulfilling ILAE criteria. Children were classified into groups considering age and epilepsy type. Annual costs of hospital care, outpatient visits and antiepileptic drugs(AED) treatment were calculated, presented as total costs and separately regarding children’ s age and type of epilepsy. Results: average annual cost per patient was 1293.0 € . The highest annual cost were hospital admissions 942.9 € (72%), followed by drug treatment 240.0 € (19%) and outpatient service 121.2 € (9%). Main components of costs were same for each examined group. The costs of epilepsy were significantly higher for children less than 5 year of age. There was no statistically significant difference in costs between partial and generalized epilepsies. AED costs were statistically significant lower for children who received traditional AED (€ 122.0) regarding those on modern AED (571.2€ ). Modern AED represented 41.3% of total AED costs. Conclusion: The costs of epilepsy in children and adolescents in Croatia are congruent to those of the developed countries. Hospital service and AE- drugs are the major source of costs. The costs varied significantly regarding the child’ s age. In countries with new rising economies and limited health system resources, cost of illness studies are first step towards the rational use of available resources.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

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