BCN HEALTH has published the study ‘Incidence and medical costs of chronic obstructive respiratory disease in Spanish hospitals: a retrospective database analysis’ in the journal ‘Journal of Medical Economics’, an international journal that publishes peer-reviewed review articles and original papers in the pharmacoeconomics and healthcare research community.
BCN HEALTH conducted a retrospective study based on records of inpatient and outpatient visits of patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Spanish hospitals between 1st January 2016 and 31st December 2020. The aim of this study was to assess the characteristics, use of health care resources and medical costs associated to a COPD cohort treated in Spanish hospitals with a 5-year follow-up period.
During the study period, 95,140 individual patients were obtained from the databased and reviewed. Most of the patients were male with a mean age of 75 years. An acute exacerbation of COPD was registered in 93.6% of patients in the index admission; other secondary diagnoses included respiratory failure, essential hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes. The age-adjusted incidence rate of COPD was 22.6 per 10,000 persons over the study period. Mortality rate was 4.1% for COPD patients, increasing to 6.6% in the year 2020. The year 2020, 191 patients registered a COVID-19 infection, with a mortality rate of 23.0%.
The median direct medical cost of admission was €3,212 in the index admission, with cost increases being associated with age, length of stay, ICU stay and CCI. Further research will be required to evaluate the total burden of COPD in Spain, considering indirect and societal costs.
More information can be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/13696998.2023.2182092
