Pharmacoeconomic Aspects of Treating Childhood Pneumonia - Cost of Illness Study Based on Data from Serbia

The pharmacoeconomic aspect of the treatment of pneumonia in the pediatric population is scarce analyzed in the countries of the Balkan region. This research aimed to determine the value of total hospital costs of treating childhood pneumonia from the Republic Fund of Health Insurance perspective. This retrospective cost of illness study was performed using the “from the bottom to the top” approach. It included 82 patients with childhood pneumonia who were treated at Clinical for pediatrics at Clinical Centre Kragujevac. The total costs of hospital treatment of pneumonia for the examined population were 4,095,293.73 RSD. The largest share in total hospital costs has the length of patient hospitalization (22%). The median total hospital costs per patient per year amounted to 40,249.91 RSD (4,793.10 - 142,149.63 RSD). Since the main determinants of overall costs of treating childhood pneumonia are the length of stay and noninvasive ventilation rate, therapeutic strategies should provide not only efficient treatment in compliance with current guidelines as also decreasing these determinants to offer a better pharmacoeconomic profile of childhood pneumonia.