Health Economic Burden of Patients with Restless Legs Syndrome in a German Ambulatory Setting

Richard Dodel (), Svenja Happe, Ines Peglau, Geert Mayer, Juergen Wasem, Jens-Peter Reese, Guido Giani, Max Geraedts, Claudia Trenkwalder, Wolfgang Oertel and Karin Stiasny-Kolster

PharmacoEconomics, 2010, vol. 28, issue 5, 393 pages

Abstract: Background: The primary characteristics of restless legs syndrome (RLS), including severe sleep disorders, restlessness in the evening and discomfort while at rest, have substantial impact on normal daily activities. Because of the high prevalence of RLS in the general population, it is necessary to evaluate the economic impact of RLS. Objective: To determine the health economic burden of patients with RLS in Germany. Methods: A total of 519 RLS patients (mean age: 65.2–11.1 years) in different stages of disease were recruited in five health centres (university hospitals, district hospitals and office-based neurologists) by applying the diagnostic criteria of the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group. A questionnaire was administered that assessed healthcare resource consumption as well as socioeconomic, demographic, clinical and health status. In addition, the International RLS severity scale (IRLS), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), EQ-5D and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were addressed in the assessment. Direct and indirect costs (€, year 2006 values) were derived from various German economic resources and calculated from the perspective of the healthcare and transfer payment providers. Results: We calculated average total costs over the 3-month observation period. It was determined that average total costs were €2090 for this period. The average direct medical and non-medical costs from the perspective of the health insurance provider were determined to be €780, with €300 attributed to drug costs and €354 to hospitalization costs. Average total indirect costs amounted to h1308 and were calculated based on productivity loss, using the human capital approach. As cost-driving factors we identified disease severity according to the IRLS (p > 0.01) and ESS (p > 0.04). Health-related quality of life was determined to be substantially affected by RLS; the mean EQ-5D visual analogue scale (VAS) was 55.6, considerably lower than that of the agematched general population. Conclusion: RLS places a notable financial burden on society as well as on patients and their families. More detailed studies are needed to evaluate the health economic impact of this disorder. Copyright Adis Data Information BV 2010

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2165/11531030-000000000-00000 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:pharme:v:28:y:2010:i:5:p:381-393

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40273

DOI: 10.2165/11531030-000000000-00000

Access Statistics for this article

PharmacoEconomics is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson and Christopher I. Carswell

More articles in PharmacoEconomics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().