Cost analysis of drug treatment in hypertensive patients at social security health care family medicine units

Abstract

Objective. To estimate the increase of drug treatment costs associated with predictive factors of hypertensive patients in family medicine units. Materials and methods. A generalized linear model was employed to estimate costs with data from a microcosting costing study for a 1-year time horizon. Sources of dada were medical electronic files, phar­macy records and unitary prices updated to 2019. Results. From a total of 864 patients older than 65 years were 67% and women 65%. Factors with most influence on mean drug treatment costs were diabetes, age and complications associ­ated with hypertension. Mean annual cost of antihypertensive treatment was 61 dollars (CI95% 55,67) and median were 32 dollars (IQR 30,35) per patient. Incremental costs for diabetes were 23 dollars (CI95% 13,33) and 25 dollars (CI95% 5, 45) in the group of ≥ 65 years. Conclusion. Diabetes, age and complications were the factors with largest influence on hypertension pharmacological costs.

Keywords

• hypertension
• cost allocation
• drug therapy