Direct health costs of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a multidisciplinary ALS unit in Catalonia (Spain)

Abstract

Our research project computed the direct health costs of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in a Spanish multidisciplinary unit and explored the main factors associated. Besides analyzing a context with universal health care provision, we used an administrative health care dataset from the most crucial center unit treating ALS in Catalonia (80% of total patients). Our results show that the direct health cost of caring for an ALS patient in our unit was 5,158€per patient/year. This cost was not influenced by the onset of the disease, sex or age, but it increased if the patient lived near our center since this facilitates the frequency of follow-up visits. Finally, the higher the educational level, the lower the direct health costs.

Keywords:

• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
• health economics
• multidisciplinary ALS care

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Miquel Valls Foundation and IDIBELL for supporting us on this project. We thank CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya for institutional support.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.