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. 2018 Apr 20;18(1):294.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-018-3066-1.

Healthcare resource use and economic burden attributable to respiratory syncytial virus in the United States: a claims database analysis

Caroline Amand  1 , Sabine Tong  2 , Alexia Kieffer  3 , Moe H Kyaw  4
Affiliations

Healthcare resource use and economic burden attributable to respiratory syncytial virus in the United States: a claims database analysis

Caroline Amand et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: Despite several studies that have estimated the economic impact of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) in infants, limited data are available on healthcare resource use and costs attributable to RSV across age groups. The aim of this study was to quantify age-specific RSV-related healthcare resource use and costs on the US healthcare system.

Methods: This retrospective case-control study identified patients aged ≥1 year with an RSV event in the Truven Health Marketscan® Commercial Claims and Encounters and Medicare Supplemental and Coordination of Benefits databases between August 31, 2012 and August 1, 2013. RSV patients were matched 1:1 with non-RSV controls for age, gender, region, healthcare plan and index date (n = 11,432 in each group). Stratified analyses for healthcare resource use and costs were conducted by age groups. RSV-attributable resource use and costs were assessed based on the incremental differences between RSV cases and controls using multivariate analysis.

Results: RSV patients had a higher healthcare resource use (hospital stays, emergency room/urgent care visits, ambulatory visits and outpatient visits) than non-RSV matched controls for all age groups (all p < 0.0001), particularly in the elderly age groups with RSV (1.9 to 3 days length of stay, 0.4 to 0.5 more ER/UC visits, 0.7 to 2.7 more ambulatory visits, 12.1 to 18.6 more outpatient visits and 9.5 to 14.6 more prescriptions than elderly in the control groups). The incremental difference in adjusted mean annual costs between RSV and non-RSV controls was higher in elderly (≥65; $12,030 to $23,194) than in those aged < 65 years ($2251 to $5391). Among children, adjusted costs attributable to RSV were higher in children aged 5-17 years ($3192), than those 1-4 years ($2251 to $2521).

Conclusions: Our findings showed a substantial annual RSV-attributable healthcare resource use and costs in the US across age groups, with the highest burden in those aged ≥65 years. These data can be used in cost-effectiveness analyses, and may be useful for policymakers to guide future RSV vaccination and other prevention programs.

Keywords: Economic burden; Healthcare costs; Healthcare resource use; RSV.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

CA, AK, MHK are employees of Sanofi. ST is an employee of IVIDATA Stats, under contract to Sanofi for this work. Author affiliation did not influence the findings of this study.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow-chart of patient inclusion
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
High-risk conditions at baseline in the RSV patients and matched controls. * P-values resulting from McNemar’s tests of the proportion of patients with at least one high-risk condition. High-risk conditions were categorized based on ICD-9-CM codes (Appendix 1)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Antibiotics and antiviral drug prescriptions in the baseline period (a) and in the follow-up period (b)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Adjusted annual healthcare costs among patients with RSV and matched controls during the follow-up period. Costs adjusted to 2014 US dollars. Multivariate linear regression models were used to adjust the total healthcare costs; covariates included gender, region, high-risk status, history of RSV during the baseline period, treatments and prematurity for children aged < 5 years
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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