Study finds higher health costs for patients with neck injury

Danish researchers have found patients with neck injuries – as well as their spouses – may experience unexplained health costs and socioeconomic consequences years prior to their injury.

“Neck injury patients had significantly higher rates of health-related contacts, medication use and higher socioeconomic costs than controls,” Poul Jennum, MD, DMSc, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, stated in a press release.

Jennum and colleagues analyzed health and social costs for 94,224 patients with neck injuries unrelated to fractures and 372,341 matched controls from the Danish National Patient Registry between 1998 and 2009, according to the abstract. Direct costs for patients with neck injuries were €2,500 higher than controls and €1,600 higher for their spouses, or approximately one-third of the total family health cost.

In addition to significantly higher costs, Jennum and colleagues found patients with neck injury also had lower employment and income rates than the control group. The researchers also noted that the increased health and social costs could begin up to 11 years before the injury.

“Particularly among those subjects whose injury had a long-term socioeconomic impact – i.e., those who developed persistent symptoms after neck injuries – there was evidence of a negative social- and health-related status several years before the accident,” Jennum stated.

Reference:

Jennum P. Spine. 2013;doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e3182819203.