Assessing socio-economic damage caused by coxarthrosis in the population

Abstract

Background. About 40 % of patients diagnosed with coxarthrosis annually seek medical help and receive social support due to this disease. Increased use of an expensive surgery for treatment of coxarthrosis and projected growth of its prevalence in the population determine the relevance of socio-economic analysis. The aim of the study. To assess the value and structure of economic damage caused by the delivering health and social care to patients with coxarthrosis at the state level of the Russian Federation. Methods. To assess economic damage, we used the average annual number of various categories of patients and disabled people with coxarthrosis in the Irkutsk region for 2008–2017. Three main categories were identified: patients who visited the outpatients’ clinic; patients with total hip replacement; disabled people due to coxarthrosis. For each category, we calculated weighted average damage per  1  conventional patient, taking into account direct and indirect costs and subsequent multiplication by the average annual number of individual categories of patients. Calculations were performed in 2017 prices. Results. The average annual socio-economic damage from coxarthrosis amounted to 1.39 (1.34÷1.43) billion rubles or 0.1 % of the gross regional product. The most of the damage (64.4 %) were indirect costs associated with disability due to coxarthrosis, 22.2  % of the total amount were the costs of hip replacement surgery, 13.4 % were the costs of outpatient visits. Indirect economic losses due to disability in patients of working age were 4.2 times higher than losses due to disability of oldage pensioners. Conclusion. The results of the study confirm the economic feasibility of surgical treatment of coxarthrosis, especially in patients of working age.