Asthma Control and Cost in Latin America

Few patients with asthma have disease that is well-controlled, particularly in Latin American countries. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether partly controlled and uncontrolled asthma are associated with increased costs for asthma-related medications and health care utilization compa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Value in health regional issues 2014-12, Vol.5, p.25-28
Main Authors: Gold, Laura S., Montealegre, Federico, Allen-Ramey, Felicia C., Jardim, Jose, Sansores, Raul, Sullivan, Sean D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines
health care utilization
hospitalization
long-term maintenance medications
oral steroids
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Summary:Few patients with asthma have disease that is well-controlled, particularly in Latin American countries. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether partly controlled and uncontrolled asthma are associated with increased costs for asthma-related medications and health care utilization compared with well-controlled asthma in five Latin American countries. Using the Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines, we classified respondents from the Latin American Asthma Insights and Management survey into those with well-controlled, partly controlled, and uncontrolled asthma and compared the utilization of health care services and costs among these groups. Most respondents to our survey (93%) had asthma that was classified as partly controlled or uncontrolled. Across all countries, patients whose asthma was partly controlled or uncontrolled had greater use of asthma-related medications and medical services than did patients whose asthma was well-controlled. After adjusting for age, sex, and country of residence, total costs for asthma-related medications and health care were greater in patients whose asthma was classified as partly controlled and uncontrolled. Our findings indicate that patients with asthma that are not well-controlled used more health care resources and had greater medical costs in Latin America.
ISSN:2212-1099
2212-1102
DOI:10.1016/j.vhri.2014.06.007