Evaluation of health-care utilization among adult patients with epilepsy in Germany

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• 作者：Adam Strzelczyk^a ; ^{adam.strzelczyk@med.uni-marburg.de} ; Tanja Nickolay^a ; Sebastian Bauer^a ; Anja Haag^a ; Susanne Knake^a ; Wolfgang H. Oertel^a ; Philipp S. Reif^a ; Felix Rosenow^a ; Jens P. Reese^a ; ^b ; Richard Dodel^a ; Hajo M. Hamer^a ; ^c
• 关键词：Cost ; Epilepsy ; Seizure ; Indirect cost ; Work loss ; Retirement ; Economic burden ; Resource use
• 刊名：Epilepsy & Behavior
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：76_15255050
• 类别：neu
• 出版时间：April, 2012
• 卷：23
• 期：4
• 页码：451-457
• 文件大小：207 K

摘要

This study evaluated the resource use of patients with epilepsy in the German district of Marburg-Biedenkopf. A cross-sectional cohort of consecutive adults with epilepsy, irrespective of seizure severity, duration of illness and epilepsy syndrome, was investigated in all health-care sectors. Costs of inpatient and outpatient treatment were derived from billing data of participating hospitals and office-based physicians. Data on socioeconomic status, course of epilepsy and further direct and indirect costs were recorded using patient questionnaires.

We enrolled 366 patients from the district of Marburg-Biedenkopf and calculated annual epilepsy-specific costs of 鈧?738 per patient. Direct costs contributed 31.1%(鈧?406) and indirect costs 68.9%(鈧?332) of the total costs. Direct medical costs were mainly due to hospitalization (33.2%of total direct costs) and anticonvulsants (26.7%). Costs of admissions were due to status epilepticus (24.4%), video-EEG monitoring (14.8%), newly diagnosed patients (14.4%) and seizure-related injuries (8.8%). Indirect costs were mainly due to early retirement (38.0%), unemployment (35.9%) and days off due to seizures (26.2%). The mean costs of epilepsy found in our study were lower than those found in studies conducted at European epilepsy centers due to the inclusion of patients in all health-care sectors.