Annual direct medical cost and contributing factors to total cost of epilepsy in Oman

OBJECTIVES To describe the pharmaceutical use, health care resource utilisation patterns, and annual direct medical cost of epilepsy as well as determining the impact of various demographic and clinical characteristics on total costs of epilepsy in Oman. METHODS Medical and pharmacy data were collected for 6 months on all patients aged > or =13 years attending the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital. Unit pharmacy and medical costs were retrieved for each patient, and multiple linear regression was utilised to analyse the impact of various demographic and clinical characteristics on total cost. RESULTS A total of 486 patients were seen over the study period. Annual direct medical costs of epilepsy amounted to 1,426 US dollars. In-patient care, the antiepileptic drug (AED) lamotrigine and specialist visits, respectively, were the first, second and third most significant predictors of total cost. Age was associated positively, and was the most significant predictor of total costs among demographic and clinical parameters. CONCLUSIONS This analysis, the first economic study of epilepsy in Oman, could assist in health care allocation of scarce resources and in pharmacoeconomic analysis of AEDs. Besides in-patient admission, our findings demonstrate that the newer drugs are significant predictors of total cost, and hence any incremental benefits derived from them must be rigorously assessed for their cost-effectiveness.