Indirect Nonhealth Care Costs Drive Total Costs in Psoriatic Arthritis and Psoriasis

Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and psoriasis have high economic burdens and the total annual costs were similar between the 2 diseases, but the combination of both yielded the highest costs, according to an abstract published at the European League Against Rheumatism annual meeting.

The researchers analyzed 318 patients with psoriasis (n = 196), PsA (n = 43), or both (n = 79) in the COEPSO (Evaluation of Costs in patients with Psoriatic Disease) trial, an observational, retrospective, cross-sectional study in 22 Spanish centers from February 2017 to February 2018.

The authors obtained information from the year prior to the study on direct nonhealth care services (including social services, home care, and private health and nonhealth professionals), as well as indirect and total costs (direct nonhealth care and indirect costs) related to the disease. They calculated out-of-pocket costs, which were specified directly by the patients, and loss of productivity costs, which were gauged by the average salaries for the occupation specific by the patients.

Patients with both psoriasis and PsA had higher annual total costs than patients who only had 1 disease (75.5% higher than patients with psoriasis and 60.9% higher than patients with PsA). However, the total costs for patients with psoriasis and PsA were similar.

The average annual total cost per patient was €1042.71 ($1186.64) for psoriasis, €1137.84 ($1294.90) for PsA, and €1830.26 ($2082.89) for both. The breakdown of direct nonhealth care costs vs indirect costs were:

• For psoriasis: €749.57 ($853.03) for direct costs and €293.14 ($333.60) for indirect costs
• For PsA: €750.50 ($854.09) for direct costs and €387.35 ($440.82) for indirect costs
• For both: €1247.56 ($1419.76) for direct costs and €582.71 ($663.14) for indirect costs

Direct nonhealth care costs accounted for a larger proportion of costs, representing between 66.0% and 71.9% of total cost for patients with PsA and psoriasis, respectively.

“PsA and [psoriasis] have proved to be diseases with a high economic burden, and the total costs were mainly driven by direct non-healthcare costs,” the authors concluded.

Reference

Vincente E, Castañeda S, Llamas Velasco M, et al. Cost of illness in patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. COEPSO Study. Presented at: EULAR 2020; June 3-6, 2020; Abstract OP0262-HPR. https://ard.bmj.com/content/79/Suppl_1/164.2