Annual Direct Economic Burden and Influencing Factors of Dry Eye Diseases in Central China

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To study the direct economic burden of dry eye diseases (DED) on Chinese residents and analyze the influencing factors of the direct economic burden of patients with DED.

Methods

Two hundred and twenty-one Chinese adults with DED who underwent treatment in Wuhan Aier Hankou Eye Hospital were enrolled in this health economics research from January 2018 to August 2018 and followed for at least 1 year. Examination, pharmacological therapy, and nonpharmacological therapy costs were collected to calculate the annual direct economic burden of DED on patients through the outpatient medical record system.

Results

Annual direct economic burden caused by DED on each patient was $465.54 ± 303.08. The direct economic burden of female patients in the 40–49 years group was significantly higher than that of male patients (P < .05). Age, number of hospital visits and severity of DED were showed a significant influence on the direct economic burden both in univariate linear regression analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Subtype of DED was showed a significant influence on the direct economic burden in multiple linear regression analysis after eliminating confounding factors.

Conclusion

This study preliminarily analyzed the direct economic burden of Chinese DED patients. Age, number of hospital visits, severity of DED, mixed and evaporative dry eye (EDE) subtypes are shown to be the significant influencing factors of the direct economic burden and sex is a potential influencing factor.

KEYWORDS:

• Dry eye disease
• direct economic burden
• influencing factors
• Asian
• economic research

Acknowledgments

The author are grateful to Aier Eye Hospital Group for providing financial support for this study. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to Liping Li and Ying wang, who assisted in data collection of this study.

Disclosure statement

None of the authors have any proprietary interests or conflicts of interest related to this submission.

Statement

This submission has not been published anywhere previously and that it is not simultaneously being considered for any other publication. Previously this article was rejected after peer review. The reviewers pointed out that calculating the actual costs per patients rather than the summation of the average of each treatment cost would be more accurate in measuring the economic burden. We calculated the actual cost of each patient and presented it in this paper.

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Aier Eye Hospital Group under Grant [number AR1904D2].