OBJECTIVES: Nowadays, health care costs of asthma are under pressure in all countries due to high prevalence, incidence and the chronic nature of disease. Therefore, conducting cost analysis of economic burden of asthma is necessary, especially in Vietnam. This is also the aim of this study. METHODS: The average cost of asthma has been evaluated using pharmacoeconomic method “cost of illness” by  following formula:

COI = DC + IC in which: COI - cost of illness, DC- direct cost, IC- indirect cost A tree-decision model has been developed to evaluate the cost of asthma by different classification of the severity of asthma. Based on the perspective of insurance companies only direct medical costs were evaluated in this study. List of medical services and drugs were derived from Guidelines for  the diagnosis and management of asthma in Vietnam. The price of drugs and medical services have been averaged from the price-list of some major hospitals in Vietnam. The cost of disease for the whole society of Vietnam has been evaluated based on the cost of disease and the number of patients in Vietnam in 2013. RESULTS: The average direct medical cost of asthma has increased by the increasing of asthma severity with 3,410,278; 6,548,156; 8,829,234; 10,746,280 VND in the intermittent, mild, moderate and severe rate of disease severity. In the structure of direct cost, with the increasing of asthma severity the percentage of costs for drugs increases and the one for medical services reduces. The average direct cost of asthma for the whole society of Vietnam resulted in nearly 16,585 billion VND per year. CONCLUSIONS: The cost of asthma management increases following the increasing of disease severity. The high economic burden of asthma (16,585 billion VND) should be considered to conduct the relevant healthcare policies.