Economic analysis of costs with enteral and parenteral nutritional therapy according to disease and outcome

OBJECTIVE: To conduct an economic analysis of enteral and parenteral diet costs according to the type of disease and outcome (survivors versus deaths). METHODS: It is a cross-sectional, observational, retrospective study with a qualitative and quantitative design, based on analysis of hospital accounts from a healthcare insurance provider in the Southern region of Brazil. RESULTS: We analyzed 301 hospital accounts of individuals who used enteral and parenteral diets. The total cost of the diet was 35.4% of hospital account total costs. The enteral modality accounted for 59.8% of total dietary costs. The major costs with diets were observed in hospitalizations related to infections, cancers and cerebro-cardiovascular diseases. The major costs with parenteral diet were with admissions related by cancers (64.52%) and dementia syndromes (46.17%). The highest ratio between total diet costs with the total of hospital account costs was in dementia syndromes (46.32%) and in cancers (41.2%). The individuals who died spent 51.26% of total of hospital account costs, being 32.81% in diet (47.45% of total diet value and 58.81% in parenteral modality). CONCLUSION: Enteral and parenteral nutritional therapies account for a significant part of the costs with hospitalized individuals, especially in cases of cancers and dementia syndromes. The costs of parenteral diets were higher in the group of patients who died.