Children’s interstitial lung disease tied to high utilization of health care services
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Children’s interstitial lung diseases were associated with high utilization of health care services in European countries and subsequent economic burden on health systems, researchers reported in Thorax.
“Data on health care resource utilization or medical costs in children’s ILD are sparse,” Elias Seidl, MD, PhD, from the department of pediatrics at Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital at the University Hospital in Munich, and colleagues wrote. “Evaluation of resource utilization can help understand health care needs, prioritize resource allocation for policymakers, identify key parameters in cost-effectiveness studies; it also indicates the need for new therapeutic strategies to reduce the socioeconomic burden of children’s ILD.”
The prospective, longitudinal study included 445 children from 10 European countries (median age, 3.8 years; 52% boys) in the Kids Lung Register who were diagnosed with children’s ILD. Researchers outlined direct medical and nonmedical care costs per 3-month interval and evaluated country-specific utilization patterns using a children-tailored modification of the validated FIMA questionnaire.
According to the study, 239 children were from Germany, 80 were from the United Kingdom, 45 were from Turkey, 38 were from Poland, 19 were from Italy and 24 were from other European countries. Hospital admission rates (62%) and inpatient days (median, 17 days) were high at baseline, defined as 3 months before inclusion into the registry.
Researchers reported that indirect (1,907) and direct (1,125) nonmedical costs were significantly lower than unadjusted direct medical per capita costs (19,818). Country-specific total costs varied widely from 8,713 in Italy to 28,788 in Poland.
Poland also had the highest direct medical (24,493) and nonmedical (1,333) costs, which were largely driven by high hospitalization rates. However, the country’s spending on outpatient medical care was low (273).
Further, disease categories with the highest expenses were diffuse parenchymal lung disease-diffuse development disorders (45,536) and diffuse parenchymal lung disease-unclear in the non-neonate (47,011).
Direct medical costs did decrease during a follow-up period of 5 years, but indirect medical costs and nonmedical costs remained stable.
Overall, this is the first comprehensive assessment and analysis of health care resource utilization to evaluate the economic burden of children’s ILD among European countries. ... “The development of standardized diagnostic approaches and new therapeutic strategies might reduce the economic burden of [children’s interstitial lung diseases],” the researchers wrote.