Skip Navigation



Rheumatology Advance Access published online on April 16, 2008
Rheumatology, doi:10.1093/rheumatology/ken039
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Thornton, J.
Right arrow Articles by Elliott, R. A.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Thornton, J.
Right arrow Articles by Elliott, R. A.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2008 The Author(s) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Costing juvenile idiopathic arthritis: examining patient-based costs during the first year after diagnosis

J. Thornton1, M. Lunt1, D. M. Ashcroft2, E. Baildam3, H. Foster4, J. Davidson5, J. Gardner-Medwin6, M. W. Beresford7, D. Symmons1, W. Thomson1 and R. A. Elliott8

1Arthritis Research Campaign Epidemiology Unit, Division of Epidemiology and Health Sciences, 2School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, 3Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, Department of Rheumatology, Liverpool, 4Department of Rheumatology, Medical School, Newcastle upon Tyne, 5Department of Rheumatology, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, 6Department of Child Health, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, 7University of Liverpool and Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, Department of Rheumatology, Liverpool and 8Division of Social Research in Medicines and Health, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.

Correspondence to: J. Thornton, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria Medicines for Children Research Network, 2nd floor, Colwyn House, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Manchester M27 4HA, UK. E-mail: Judith.thornton{at}cmmc.nhs.uk


  Abstract

Objectives. There are few data on the treatment patterns and associated cost of treating children with inflammatory arthritis including juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), in the short or long term. The aim of this study was to obtain patient-based costs for treating children with JIA in the UK, in the first year from diagnosis and from the secondary health care payer perspective.

Methods. The Childhood Arthritis Prospective Study (CAPS) is an ongoing longitudinal study recruiting children with inflammatory arthritis from four UK hospital centres. Included children are newly diagnosed, ≤16 years old with inflammatory arthritis of one or more joints, which has persisted for at least 2 weeks. Health service resource use data were collected as part of routine clinical care at study entry, 6 months and 1 year. Reference unit costs were applied to these data and the cost of treatment per child calculated for the first year from diagnosis.

Results. A total of 297 children attended a 12-month follow-up visit. The mean annual total cost per child was £1649 (S.D. £1093, range £401–£6967). The highest cost component was for appointments with paediatric rheumatologists. Mean total costs were highest for children with enthesitis-related, systemic JIA or extended oligoarthritis.

Conclusions. In the first 12 months after diagnosis, children with all JIA disease subtypes consume large, but highly variable quantities of health service resources. Individual patient costs are required to reflect the wide variation in cost between patients and allow appropriate recouping of costs for contracted services and for assessing the economic impact of interventions.

KEY WORDS: Inflammatory arthritis, Juvenile idiopathic arthritis, Economics, Costing study

Submitted 28 June 2007; revised version accepted 15 January 2008.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.