A comparison of health-care costs involved in treating people with and without Parkinson’s disease in Southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Twelve community-dwelling subjects with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and 12 age-matched healthy controls completed a 3-month diary of health-care utilisation in Sydney, Australia. The mean age for the PD group was 71.3 years (SD 5.9, range 62–82 years) versus 73.2 years (SD 6.7, range 63–83 years) for the control group. The mean disease duration of the PD group was 6.8 years (SD 3.6, range 2–14 years). The median Hoehn and Yahr stage was 3 (range 1–3). The mean 3-month total (both related and ‘unrelated’ to PD) health-care cost for the PD group was significantly higher than that for the ‘healthy’ control group (A$1755, SD 1201 versus A$413, SD 515, P = 0.001). Medication was the most costly component for both groups (PD A$636, SD 226 versus controls A$175, SD 233, P < 0.001) followed by general practitioner or specialist medical expenses (PD A$564, SD 670 versus controls A$205, SD 397, p = 0.12) and allied health-care costs (PD A$323, SD 178 versus controls A$21, SD 43, p < 0.001). In the PD subgroup, the health-care costs attributed to PD during the 3-month period were significantly higher than health-care costs ‘unrelated’ to PD (A$1202, SD 820 versus A$553, SD 591, p = 0.03). On subgroup analysis, allied health-care costs (related to PD) achieved statistical significance (A$304, SD 180 versus A$19, SD 19, p < 0.0001), whereas medication and general practitioner or specialist costs did not. In conclusion, we found that the total direct health-care cost of PD for patients with Hoehn and Yahr stage ⩽3 was four times that of age- and sex-matched ‘healthy’ controls. The estimated annual cost (A$7020 per patient) in our patient cohort was comparable to that reported in the United States and Europe.