Table 3.
Trend estimates for post-stroke healthcare service utilization and costs by sub-groups
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | p-value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outpatient (SOC) Servicea | IRR | IRR (95% CI) | IRR (95% CI) | IRR (95% CI) | |
| Disability (mRS) | |||||
| No or slight disability (0–2) | Ref | 0.87 (0.68, 1.10) | 0.58 (0.50, 0.67) | 0.54 (0.46, 0.63) | < 0.001 |
| Moderate or severe disability (3–5) | Ref | 1.09 (0.96, 1.23) | 0.86 (0.74, 1.00) | 0.87 (0.73, 1.05) | 0.035 |
| Outpatient (PC) Costsa | Exp(β) | Exp(β) (95% CI) | Exp(β) (95% CI) | Exp(β) (95% CI) | |
| Ischemic stroke | |||||
| Mild (0–4) | Ref | 1.15 (0.97, 1.35) | 1.02 (0.85, 1.21) | 1.10 (0.91, 1.33) | 0.577 |
| Moderately severe (5–14) | Ref | 1.67 (1.22, 2.30) | 1.74 (1.30, 2.33) | 1.64 (1.18, 2.29) | 0.003 |
| Severe (15–24) | Ref | 2.27 (0.56, 9.15) | 2.72 (0.69, 10.74) | 3.20 (0.73, 13.97) | 0.102 |
| Non-Ischemic stroke | |||||
| Mild (0–4) | Ref | 1.10 (0.64, 1.91) | 1.84 (1.01, 3.35) | 1.64 (0.85, 3.15) | 0.067 |
| Moderately severe (5–14) | Ref | 1.61 (0.97, 2.67) | 3.15 (1.76, 5.65) | 2.44 (1.33, 4.48) | 0.001 |
| Severe (15–24) | Ref | 2.18 (0.47, 10.14) | 4.92 (0.86, 28.18) | 4.77 (0.97, 23.41) | 0.032 |
Abbreviations: Ref reference category, IRR incidence rate ratio, CI confidence interval, SOC specialist outpatient clinic, PC primary care, Exp(β) exponentiated beta coefficient corresponds to the ratio of expected cost from Q2 to Q4 to the reference quarter respectively
aEffect estimates based on Model 3: SOC Service included interaction between mRS and quarter (p < 0.001) term; PC Cost included interaction between stroke type and quarter (p = 0.017) and between severity and quarter (p = 0.039) terms