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BMC Public Health: Cost for physician-diagnosed influenza and influenza-like illnesses on primary care level in Germany ? results of a database analys

tetano

Editor, Senior Moderator
[h=1]Cost for physician-diagnosed influenza and influenza-like illnesses on primary care level in Germany ? results of a database analysis from May 2010 to April 2012[/h] Birgit Ehlken[SUP]1[/SUP][SUP]*[/SUP], Anastassia Anastassopoulou[SUP]2[/SUP], Johannes Hain[SUP]2[/SUP], Claudia Schr?der[SUP]1[/SUP][SUP]3[/SUP] and Klaus Wahle[SUP]4[/SUP]
Author Affiliations
[SUP]1[/SUP] IMS Health, Erika-Mann-Str. 5, Munich, 80636, Germany
[SUP]2[/SUP] GlaxoSmithKline GmbH & Co. KG, Prinzregentenplatz 9, Munich, 81675, Germany
[SUP]3[/SUP] Present Address: Novo Nordisk Pharma GmbH, Brucknerstr. 1, Mainz, 55127, Germany
[SUP]4[/SUP] Department of General Medicine, University of Muenster, Domagkstr. 3, Muenster, 48129, Germany

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BMC Public Health 2015, 15:578 doi:10.1186/s12889-015-1885-0
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/15/578
[TABLE="cellpadding: 0, cellspacing: 0"]
[TR]
[TD]Received:[/TD]
[TD]10 March 2015[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Accepted:[/TD]
[TD]29 May 2015[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Published:[/TD]
[TD]21 June 2015[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
? 2015 Ehlken et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.


[h=3]Abstract[/h] [h=4]Background[/h] Seasonal influenza is one of the most significant infectious diseases in Germany; epidemic outbreaks occur every winter and cause substantial morbidity and mortality. However, published data from Germany on the current economic burden of influenza and the costs per episode are lacking.
[h=4]Methods[/h] A retrospective database analysis was conducted using a longitudinal electronic medical records database (IMS Disease Analyzer). Patients with influenza, diagnosed by German office-based physicians using ICD-10 J09-11 (International Classification of Diseases, 10 [SUP]th[/SUP] revision), who were observable in the database from 12 months before the index (diagnosis) date until 1 month afterwards, were included. The selection window, defined to cover two influenza seasons, was May 2010 to April 2012. Direct and indirect costs were evaluated from payer, patient and societal perspectives. Published unit costs and tariffs from Germany (2012) were used for the analysis.
[h=4]Results[/h] A total of 21,039 influenza-attributable episodes in 17,836 adults, managed by primary care physicians (PCP) and 7,107 episodes in 6,288 children, managed by pediatricians, were eligible for analysis. The mean (?Standard Deviation (SD)) age of the adults with at least one episode was 46 (?18) years and 7 (?4) years in the children. The presence of clinical risk factors was documented for 39 % episodes in adults and 24 % episodes in children, with the most common being cardiovascular diseases in adults (29 %) and chronic respiratory diseases in children (23 %). Complications and severe symptoms accompanied the influenza-attributable episode (adults: 37 %, children: 54 %), bronchitis (adults: 16 %, children: 19 %) and acute upper respiratory infection (adults: 15 %, children: 21 %) being the most frequent. From a societal perspective, the total average mean cost (?SD) per episode was ?514 (?609) in adults, where work days lost were the main cost driver (82 %), and ?105 (?224) in children. Complications and severe symptoms increased the cost per episode versus episodes without by 1.7 times in adults (?684 (?713) vs. ?413 (?510)) and nearly 3 times in children (?149 (?278) vs. ?55 (?116)).
[h=4]Conclusions[/h] Based on a large patient sample derived from representative PCP and pediatricians panels, our results demonstrate that seasonal influenza is associated with substantial clinical and economic burden in Germany.

[h=5]Keywords:[/h] Seasonal influenza; Burden of disease; Cost; Complications; Risk factors

full article

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/15/578
 
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