OBJECTIVES

: The aim of the study is to determine the correlates of in-hospital costs for palliative care in a university hospital setting.

METHODS

: This is a retrospective cost-of-illness study using data from the records of patients who were admitted to Katip Celebi University Hospital during December 2013- December 2015. Direct medical costs were calculated from the Social Security Institute perspective. Socio-demographic and clinical information was abstracted from patient files. A generalized linear model was used in the multivariate analysis to generate cost ratios(CR). The average exchange rate for USD/TL was 2.72 for year 2015.

RESULTS

: We included 374 in-patients in total in the study. Gastrointestinal system cancers were the most common cancer type (42.4%) followed by genitourinary system cancers (20.1%), central nervous system (16.4%), breast cancer (10,7%) respectively. Neurologic cancers (4746±3989 TL) and genitourinary system cancers (3968±3804 TL) had the highest costs. The largest proportion of the total cost was formed by medical interventions (55.8%), followed by medications (17.0%). Radiotherapy CR:1.67(95% CI: 1.19-2.34) and tramadol treatment CR:1.26(95%CI:1.01-1.59) were significant predictors of hospital costs.

CONCLUSIONS

: Palliative unit costs varied substantially, however majority of the variables could not predict the hospital cost of palliative care independently.