Management patterns and health care use after intracerebral Hemorrhage - A cost-of-illness study from a societal perspective in Germany

Background. The German cost-of-illness study of stroke is a multicenter study in 6 departments of internal medicine, 9 departments of general neurology and 15 departments of neurology with an acute stroke unit. The aims of this study are to describe the management patterns, cost of treatment and overall resource utilization after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) as well as the major differences to ischemic stroke (IS). Methods: During a 12-month period, 30 participating centers with a special interest in stroke prospectively included 586 patients with ICH which were collected in a joint data bank. About 75% of all patients could be centrally followed up via structured telephone interviews after 3 and 12 months to assess further acute hospital and rehabilitation stays, outpatient resource utilization, functional outcome and quality of life. Results: Mortality after 3 months (33.5%) was markedly higher than in patients with IS from the same hospitals. Accordingly, only 30.9% of patients had regained independent functional status after 3 months. Cumulative cost of treatment amounted to 5,301 EUR for inpatient stay in the documenting hospital and 8,920 EUR for the overall hospital stay including rehabilitation. Mean direct cost after discharge during the first year amounted to 4,598 EUR and the loss of work force was equivalent to 5,537 EUR in all surviving patients. Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive overview of patient characteristics, treatment strategies and health care cost of ICH from a societal perspective in Germany. Copyright (C) 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel.