Patient education after stoma creation may reduce health-care costs

INTRODUCTION

Researchers are urged to include health-economic assessments when exploring the benefits and drawbacks of a new treatment. The aim of the study was to assess the costs associated with the establishment of a new patient education programme for patients with a stoma.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Following a previous case-control study that explored the effect of patient education for stoma patients, we set out to examine the costs related to such a patient education programme. The primary outcome was disease-specific health-
related quality of life measured with the Ostomy Adjustment Scale six months after surgery. The secondary outcome was generic health-related quality of life measured with Short Form (SF)-36. In this secondary analysis, we calculated direct health-care costs for the first six months post-operatively from the perspective of the health-care system, including costs related to the hospital as well as primary health care.

RESULTS

The overall cost related to establishing a patient education programme showed no significant increase in the overall average costs. However, we found a significant reduction in costs related to unplanned readmissions (p = 0.01) as well as a reduction in visits to the general practitioner (p = 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Establishing a patient education programme − which increased quality of life − will probably not increase the overall costs associated with the patient course.

FUNDING

The study received financial support from Søster Inge Marie Dahlgaards Fond, Diakonissestiftelsen, Denmark, and from Aase and Ejnar Danielsens Foundation, Denmark.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

NCT01154725.

CORRESPONDENCE: Anne Kjærgaard Danielsen. E-mail: anne.k.danielsen@gmail.com

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.danmedj.dk

REFERENCE: Dan Med J 2014;61(4):A4659