Cost of Illness of Tuberculosis in Tehran in the Year 2011

AIM: Present study calculates and analyzes Cost of illness of tuberculosis in Tehran. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This study was a descriptive analytical study conducted among 121 patients in two stages in 2011. In the first stage, questionnaires were collected by reviewing patient records and phone interviews with patients. The second stage deals with the calculation of costs. For cost calculation, we used incidence based and bottom-up approach, and for calculating indirect costs, human capital approach was used. The vision used for this study was community-based in which all costs are included. RESULT: The average costs per patient were calculated to be as follows: 28,467,737 Rials(2588 dollars) for direct medical costs, 1,011,360 Rials (92 dollars) for indirect medical costs and 5,533,020 (503 dollars) Rials for indirect costs. On the whole, average costs per patient was 35,056,170 Rials most of which were related to hospital costs (62/11%). Also, the average time away from work was 47 days. Cost calculated for all patients with tuberculosis in Tehran in 1390, including indirect costs caused by premature deaths of patients, was 101,900,501,328 Rials (9,263,681 U.S.$) CONCLUSION: To sum up, in Tehran in 2011 on average every day about 279,179,456 Rials (25,380 dollars) was spent on TB patients. Moreover, heavy costs caused by TB, which are usually imposed to the households in two or three months, have significant effect of decreasing households’ quality of life which calls health policy makers’ attention.