D2 | Abstract 21

Annual NUTRIM Symposium 18 November 2020

APPLIED SCIENCE

The economic burden of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease patients in the Netherlands - A cost of illness study

Wietse van de Ven1, Dr Ger Koek2,3, Toon De Munck2,3 and Prof Dr Silvia Evers 1,4,5

1 Maastricht University Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life sciences
2 Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
3 School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (NUTRIM), Maastricht University
4 CAPHRI Care and PublicHealth Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht,
5 Trimbos Institute Centre for Mental Health and Economic Evaluation, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Background and aims:
 The most common liver disorder in Western society is Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Large cohort studies showed that NAFLD prevalence is high with rising incidence. There is no recent burden of disease study of NAFLD in the Netherlands from a societal perspective. The aim of this study is to obtain an estimate of the economic burden of NAFLD patients in the Netherlands between the age of 18-70 from a societal perspective.

Methods:
 Data in this study was obtained from individual NAFLD patients using a bottom-up approach. Questionnaires used resulted in volumes of the used healthcare resources. These volumes were then multiplied with unit costs. The EuroQoL was used for obtaining quality of life utility. The questionnaire was sent to 66 subjects, 29 responses were received, and after removal of duplicate responses and responses with missing data 19 subject responses were included in the analyses.

Results:
 The total healthcare costs were 851.76 euros per subject, in a period of 3 months. The two biggest healthcare cost were from visits to the clinical psychologist, and day stays in the hospital. The most subjects had healthcare costs from prescriptions for medicine and visits to the general practitioner. Non-healthcare costs were 418.94 euros per subject in a period of 3 months. The Quality of life utility was 0.877 and differed from EUROQOL VAS score which was 79.895.

Conclusion:
 The estimation of the economic burden of NAFLD patients in the Netherlands between the age of 18-70 from a societal perspective was 1242.92 euros in 3 months. Due to the growing prevalence of NAFLD and the increased costs of NAFLD patients found in this and other studies, it is in the interest for the society, the healthcare system and the NAFLD patients to research this topic further and more extensively.
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