Abstract

Objectives: Healthcare service needs have changed with the use of effective treatment strategies. Using data from the modern era, we aimed to explore and compare health service-related direct costs in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and axial spondyloarthritis (AxSpA).Methods: We linked a longitudinal, population-based clinical data set from Finland's largest non-university hospital's rheumatology clinic with an administrative database on health service-related direct costs in 2014. We compared all-cause costs and costs of comorbidities between adult patients with JIA, PsA, RA, and AxSpA (including ankylosing spondylitis). We also characterized patients with high healthcare resource utilization.Results: Cost distributions were similar between rheumatic diseases (p=0.88). In adulthood, patients with JIA displayed a similar economic burden to much older patients with other inflammatory rheumatic diseases. A minority were high utilizers: among 119 patients with JIA, 15% utilized as much as the remaining 85%. For PsA (213 patients), RA (1086), and AxSpA (277), the high-utilization proportion was 10%. Both low and high utilizers showed rather low disease activity, but in high utilizers, the patient-reported outcomes were slightly worse, with the most distinct differences in pain levels. Of health service-related direct costs, index rheumatic diseases comprised only one-third (43.6% in JIA) and the majority were comorbidity costs.Conclusions: Patients with JIA, PsA, RA, and AxSpA share similar patterns of healthcare resource utilization, with substantial comorbidity costs and a minority being high utilizers. Innovations in meeting these patients' needs are warranted.

Original languageEnglish
JournalScandinavian Journal of Rheumatology
Volume48
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)300-307
Number of pages8
ISSN0300-9742
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Jul 2019
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Fields of Science

  • 3121 General medicine, internal medicine and other clinical medicine
  • JUVENILE IDIOPATHIC ARTHRITIS
  • PSORIATIC-ARTHRITIS
  • ANKYLOSING-SPONDYLITIS
  • ECONOMIC-IMPACT
  • DIRECT COSTS
  • DEPRESSION
  • ILLNESS
  • BURDEN
  • PAIN
  • COMORBIDITY

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