Health care use and costs attributable to cardiovascular disease in Ireland: a cross-sectional study

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of mortality and disability in Europe but the use of health services and costs associated with CVD are poorly quantified. We examined health service use attributable to CVD and corresponding costs in Ireland. Data on 8113 participants aged 50+ of the first wave of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing was used. CVD was defined as having a self-reported doctor diagnosis of myocardial infarction, angina, heart failure, stroke, atrial fibrillation or transient ischaemic attack. Outcomes were the self-reported number of general practitioner (GP) and outpatient department (OPD) visits, accident and emergency department (A&E) attendances and hospitalisations over the 12 months preceding the interview. Negative binomial regression adjusted for socio-demographic confounders and other chronic conditions was used to study the effects of CVD on the outcomes. Average marginal effects (AME) were estimated to examine the additional use of health services attributable to CVD. We estimated the total additional costs attributable to CVD at the population level using Census 2022 data. Participants with CVD reported higher utilization of all health services. In adjusted models, having CVD was associated with additional 1.19 (95% CI: 0.99, 1.39) GP and 0.79 (95% CI: 0.65, 0.93) OPD visits over the past year. There were twice as many additional hospitalisations attributable to CVD in males compared to females (AME: 0.20 (95% CI: 0.16, 0.23) in males vs AME: 0.10 (95% CI: 0.07, 0.14) in females), with no difference observed in the additional use of other healthcare services by gender or age groups. The population-level costs of the additional healthcare service use attributable to CVD were an estimated €352.2 million (95% CI: €272.8, €431.7), 93% of which was due to use of secondary care services. There is a substantial additional use of health services due to CVD in Ireland, with hospital admissions being the biggest contributor to costs. KEY MESSAGES: • The vast majority of additional costs attributable to CVD in Ireland are generated through use of secondary care services. • While a shift is being implemented in Ireland to manage uncomplicated CVD cases in primary care, sustained efforts aimed at CVD primary prevention are required to contain health service costs.