Economic burden and quality of life of vulvodynia in the United States

Abstract

Objective:

To explore the economic burden and quality of life of vulvodynia in the United States.

Methods:

We conducted a web-based survey from 2009 to 2010. Patients who responded to a National Vulvodynia Association advertisement completed the survey every month, recording their own costs and their employers’ payments related to vulvodynia in the previous month. A total of 302 patients entered data for at least 1 month and among them, 97 patients had completed data for 6 months. We used multiple imputation to generate values for unobserved cost components. For insurance payments, we also extracted the average insurance payments for direct healthcare services relating to vulvodynia from a commercial insurance database. The total costs were disaggregated into direct healthcare costs, direct non-healthcare costs and indirect costs. We also assessed patients’ quality of life by using Euro QOL 5 dimensions (EQ-5D) in a follow-up survey.

Results:

The total costs in 6 months were $8862.40 per patient, of which $6043.34 (68.19%) were direct healthcare costs, $553.81 (6.25%) were direct non-healthcare costs and $2265.25 (25.56%) were indirect costs. Based on the reported prevalence range of 3–7% in the US, our analysis yielded an annual national burden ranging from $31 to $72 billion in the US. However, the estimate should be viewed with caution as our study sample was non-probability. The average EQ-5D score was 0.74 ± 0.19 in vulvodynia patients.

Conclusion:

Vulvodynia is associated with a huge economic burden to both individuals and society. It is also related to a relatively low quality of life.

Keywords::

• Economic burden
• EQ-5D
• Quality of life
• Vulvodynia

Transparency

Declaration of funding

This project was funded through a grant from National Vulvodynia Association, Silver Spring, MD, USA.

Declaration of financial/other interests

The authors have disclosed that they received no relevant financial support. CMRO peer reviewers on this manuscript have disclosed that they have no relevant financial relationships.

Acknowledgment

An earlier version of the abstract has been accepted for poster presentation at the 17th Annual Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology (MCH EPI) Conference, ‘Using Epidemiology to Improve Maternal and Child Health,’ December 14–16, 2011 in New Orleans, LA, USA