Table 3.
Costs of health care contacts over a one-year period for non-SAC and SAC patients in three European countries
| United Kingdom | Italy | Germany | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health care contacts | Unit cost | Cost non-SAC | Cost SAC | Unit cost | Cost non-SAC | Cost SAC | Unit cost | Cost non-SAC | Cost SAC |
| Specialist centre visits | 197 | 0 | 197 | 25 | 0 | 36 | 170 | 0 | 221 |
| General Practitioner visits | 42 | 98 | 81 | 25 | 32 | 17 | 29 | 161 | 144 |
| Neurologist outpatient visits | 197 | 296 | 256 | 25 | 69 | 10 | 65 | 242 | 163 |
| Inpatient stays | 4280 | 1284 | 428 | 4734 | 1420 | 1420 | 4950 | 0 | 1485 |
| Accident & Emergency visits | 196 | 59 | 59 | 24 | 7 | 2 | 144 | 14 | 86 |
| Physiotherapy visits | 65 | 104 | 201 | 20 | 374 | 285 | 38 | 1274 | 1055 |
| Speech and Language therapy visits | 185 | 130 | 56 | 20 | 154 | 126 | 38 | 337 | 435 |
| Occupational Health Therapy visits | 120 | 156 | 181 | 20 | 30 | 26 | 38 | 299 | 393 |
| Other consultant specialist visits | 119 | 83 | 355 | 25 | 41 | 48 | 65 | 104 | 104 |
| Total | 2209 | 1813 | 2126 | 1971 | 2431 | 4087 | |||
| P-value† | 0.55 | 0.68 | 0.26 | ||||||
| P-value‡ | 0.59 | 0.84 | 0.19 | ||||||
† Test for significant differences in mean costs between non-SAC and SAC groups (unadjusted)
‡ Test for significant differences in mean costs between non-SAC and SAC groups (adjusted for age, sex, number of symptoms and number of comorbidities)
SAC, specialist ataxia centre
All numbers are 2021 €
The numbers in the Cost non-SAC and Cost SAC columns are the unit costs for each type of health care contact multiplied by the number of those contacts in Table 2. We tested for significant differences in mean costs between countries separately for non-SAC and SAC groups (adjusted for age, sex, number of symptoms and number of comorbidities). For the non-SAC group there were no significant differences in mean costs between countries (P-value = 0.95). For the SAC group there were significant differences in mean costs between countries (P-value < 0.01)