Citation

Neramitpitagkul P, Lertpitakpong C, Yothasamut J, Thavorncharoensap M, Chaikledkaew U, Teerawattananon Y. Value Health 2009; 12(Suppl 3): S97-S100.

Affiliation

Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1524-4733.2009.00638.x

PMID

20586993

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to estimate health-care costs because of diseases caused by alcohol consumption based on health system's perspective. METHODS: Total direct health-care costs of alcohol drinking were the summation of the costs of alcohol drinking in inpatient and outpatient departments due to chronic diseases and acute conditions using prevalence-based approach. The alcohol-attributable fractions, defined as the proportion of a disease or acute condition in a population attributable to alcohol drinking, were calculated to obtain the number of patients in each disease or acute condition attributable to alcohol drinking. Health-care costs of alcohol drinking were estimated by multiplying the number of patients in each disease category attributable to alcohol drinking with the unit cost of treatment. RESULTS: Total health-care costs attributed to alcohol in this research were 5491 million baht (i.e., outpatient department [2488 million baht] and inpatient department [3003 million baht]). Cost derived from inpatient department accounted for 55% of the total health-care cost attributed to alcohol. CONCLUSIONS: The result of this study suggested that alcohol drinking was significantly associated with a large number of health-care costs in Thailand. Estimation of health-care costs related to alcohol drinking would provide an important insight into future policy appraisal and evaluation.

Language: en