Excess Economic Burden of Comorbidities in COPD: a 15-year population-based study (COPD comorbidity costs)

Study type

• Study topic:
  Disease /health condition
• Study type:
  Non-interventional study
• Scope of the study:
  Disease epidemiology
• Data collection methods:
  Secondary use of data

Non-interventional study

• Non-interventional study design:
  Cohort

Study drug and medical condition

• Medical condition to be studied:
  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Population studied

• Short description of the study population:
  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients.
• Age groups:
  • Adults (18 to < 46 years)
  • Adults (46 to < 65 years)
  • Adults (65 to < 75 years)
  • Adults (75 to < 85 years)
  • Adults (85 years and over)
• Special population of interest:
  Other
• Special population of interest, other:
  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients
• Estimated number of subjects:
  126456

Study design details

• Main study objective:
  To investigate the proportion and distribution of comorbidity costs in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Outcomes:
  Excess medical costs of COPD patients
• Data analysis plan:
  This study used a matched cohort design to select patients with COPD and a comparable population who did not have COPD but had similar demographics and clinical features. Following this, we separately calculated their medical costs, including overall costs, and costs of hospitalizations, outpatient visits, medications and community care services. Based on the diagnostic code, these costs were attributed to COPD and sixteen major comorbidity areas. Finally, we used a generalized linear model to estimate the excess costs of COPD, defined as the differences in estimated costs between a COPD person and a non-COPD control.