Evaluation of economic burden of viral respiratory tract infections in hospitalized adults

In this study, we aimed to investigate the cost of hospitalizations, i.e. direct medical costs and indirect medical costs caused by loss of productivity, due to respiratory viral infections. Patients hospitalized in internal medicine wards and who had nasal swab sampling for a suspected viral infection were included between 1 August 2018 to 31 March 2019. At least one viral agent was detected in 125 (47.7%) of 262 patients who were included in the study. Fifty-five (20.9%) of the patients were infected with influenza virus. Viral pathogen positive group and viral pathogen negative group were similar in terms of demographic characteristics and comorbidities. However, the median hospitalization cost per person in the viral pathogen-positive group was 2,220.74 TL higher than the viral pathogen-negative group (17,069.98 TL vs 14,849.24 TL, respectively). Influenza infection was associated with an additional direct medical cost of 913.49 TL compared to other respiratory infections (17,581.53 TL vs 16,668.04 TL, respectively). There was a direct medical cost difference of 2,117.24 TL between patients with influenza infection and those without any viral pathogen detected (17,581.53 TL vs 15,464.29 TL, respectively). The mean cost of hospitalization per person was 15,594.27 TL higher in unvaccinated patients when compared to vaccinated patients in influenza infected group (19,715.27 TL vs 4,121 TL, respectively). Most of the hospital expenditure was covered by the third-party payer. Almost half of this expenditure was pharmaceutical expenditure (43%). Second and third highest expenditure were due to care provided by medical staff (18%) and consumable material (15%) respectively. Indirect medical cost due to loss of productivity in influenza positive patients was 5,397.95 TL per person.