Economic burden of cardiovascular diseases in Serbia

Cardiovascular disease imposes a burden to society in terms of mortality, morbidity and economic losses. The aim of this study was to estimate the economic burden of cardiovascular disease in Serbia in 2009 from the perspective of the society.

For the purpose of the study cardiovascular disease was defined by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, as the following diagnosis: hypertension, coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy, heart failure and cerebrovascular disease. The prevalence, top-down method was used to quantify the annual cardiovascular costs. Productivity losses were estimated using the human capital approach and the friction cost method. A discount rate of 5% was used to convert all future lifetime earnings into the present value.

The total direct costs of cardiovascular disease in 2009 were Euro 400 million. The results showed that more than half a million working days were lost due to incapacity resulting from cardiovascular diseases, yielding the Euro 113.9 millon. The majority of total costs (Euro 514.3 million) were for: medication (29.94%), hospital days (28.97%) and hospital inpatient care--surgical and diagnostic interventions (17.84%). The results were robust to a change in 20% of volume or the unit price of all direct and indirect cost and to discount rate 2% and 10%. CONCLUSIONS; The total cardiovascular disease costs in 2009 represented approximately 1.8% of the Serbian gross domestic product. The results of the study would be valuable to health policy makers to bridge the gap between invested resources and needs, in order to improve cardiovascular disease outcomes.