Patient education after stoma creation may reduce health-care costs
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
INTRODUCTION: Researchers are urged to include health-economic assessments when exploring the benefits and drawbacks of a new treatment. The aim of the study was to assess the costs associated with the establishment of a new patient education programme for patients with a stoma.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Following a previous case-control study that explored the effect of patient education for stoma patients, we set out to examine the costs related to such a patient education programme. The primary outcome was disease-specific health-related quality of life measured with the Ostomy Adjustment Scale six months after surgery. The secondary outcome was generic health-related quality of life measured with Short Form (SF)-36. In this secondary analysis, we calculated direct health-care costs for the first six months post-operatively from the perspective of the health-care system, including costs related to the hospital as well as primary health care.
RESULTS: The overall cost related to establishing a patient education programme showed no significant increase in the overall average costs. However, we found a significant reduction in costs related to unplanned readmissions (p = 0.01) as well as a reduction in visits to the general practitioner (p = 0.05).
CONCLUSION: Establishing a patient education programme - which increased quality of life - will probably not increase the overall costs associated with the patient course.
FUNDING: The study received financial support from Søster Inge Marie Dahlgaards Fond, Diakonissestiftelsen, Denmark, and from Aase and Ejnar Danielsens Foundation, Denmark.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01154725.
Original language | English |
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Article number | A4659 |
Journal | Danish Medical Journal |
Volume | 61 |
Issue number | 4 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-5 |
Number of pages | 5 |
ISSN | 1603-9629 |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2014 |
- Costs and Cost Analysis, Health Care Costs, Humans, Patient Education as Topic, Quality of Life, Surgical Stomas
Research areas
ID: 138384790