OBJECTIVES

: HIPOS-WARD was an observational, cross-sectional, multicenter study designed to evaluate diabetic patients hospitalized due to a hypoglycemic episode as a function of the diabetic patients hospitalized due to a hyperglycemic emergency. A key secondary objective was to calculate the indirect costs associated with loss of productivity per absenteeism due to emergency and inpatient stay.

METHODS

: Productivity loss was calculated based on Human Capital Approach, and indirect costs were only applicable to active workers, full or partial. These costs were estimated considering costs of patients’ absenteeism and costs of family member absenteeism, excluding weekends.

The estimate of the absent days impact was calculated by the average cost of a work-day (age group and gender balanced) multiplied by the respective number of day that workers did not participate in the labor market from emergency room admission until ward discharge.

RESULTS

: Absenteeism was reported for 7,4% of the patients included in this study, which represented approximately 86.7% of the actively working patients. Considering this subpopulation, the mean wage/day obtained was 117.24€ and, on average, 15 days of work were lost since emergency room admission and even after ward discharge. Indirect cost due to emergency attendance, hospitalization and post-hospitalization period associated with the hypoglycemic episode averaged 140.44€ and had a maximum of 6,296.26€. When considering the pool of sample that was actively working and reported for absent, average cost associated to absenteeism increased to 1,901.31€. Caregiver absenteeism of 291,05€ was excluded of general analysis as it implied only one case and might not be representative of mean results.

CONCLUSIONS

: Total productivity loss for an active patient with a hypoglycemic event is substantial. Further research in productivity loss and its indirect costs should be conducted to ascertain the impact to the caregiver.