title: Costs and quality of life for psoriatic patients at different degrees of severity in southern Sweden - a cross-sectional study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Knowledge of the societal costs of psoriasis is limited. This study estimated the cost of care, psoriasis area and severity index (PASI), and quality of life in a defined patient population in Sweden.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prevalence-based prospective recruitment of patients visiting two Swedish dermatology clinics between September and December 2009 was performed, collecting resource utilization for health care contacts, treatment, travelling, and productivity loss during 1 month.
  
  
  RESULTS
  164 patients were included. Mean total cost per patient-month was 994€. Main cost drivers were outpatient visits and light therapy (49%), biological drugs (20%) and productivity loss (22%). Total cost for topical treatment only (TT; 34%) was 369€, light therapy (LT; 24%) 1,274€, traditional systemic treatment (TST; 26%) 1,085€ and biological systemic treatment (BST; 16%) 1,709€ per patient-month. Main cost drivers were: outpatient visits (56%) in TT as well as for LT (78%), productivity loss (40%) in TST, and biological drugs (71%) among BST patients. There was no clear relationship between clinical (PASI) or subjective (DLQI) severity estimations and costs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The one-month cost-of-illness amounted to almost 1,000€/month, with great variations. Despite 1,190€ difference in drug cost for TST vs BST, total cost per month differed by 623€ because of offsets from improved productivity. A trend towards lower severity and reductions in outpatient and topical treatment costs was seen.
authors.affiliation: The Swedish Institute for Health Economics, Lund, Sweden. og@ihe.se
authors.forename: Ola
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ghatnekar
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ljungberg
authors.forename: Lars-Erik
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Wirestrand
authors.forename: Ake
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Svensson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000191:economics* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D011788:Quality of Life; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013548:Sweden