RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Trajectory of Healthcare Resources Utilization in Giant Cell Arteritis – A Population-Based Study
JF The Journal of Rheumatology
JO J Rheumatol
FD The Journal of Rheumatology
SP jrheum.201131
DO 10.3899/jrheum.201131
A1 Aladdin J.  Mohammad
A1 Aleksandra Turkiewicz
A1 Pavlos Stamatis
A1 Carl Turesson
A1 Martin Englund
A1 Ali Kiadaliri
YR 2021
UL http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2021/02/24/jrheum.201131.abstract
AB Objective To estimate the healthcare resource utilization (HRU) in patients with giant cell arteritis (GCA) compared with the general population in southern Sweden. Methods The study sample comprised 653 GCA patients along with ten age-, sex-, and residency-area-matched reference subjects per patient. Data on public and private healthcare consultations and hospitalizations were extracted from the Skåne Healthcare Register. We assessed trajectories of primary and specialist healthcare visit, as well as hospital admissions, and inpatient days from three years before through five years after the date of GCA diagnosis for patients and matched references. HRU was analysed using generalized estimating equations adjusted for sex, age at the index year, calendar year of diagnosis, education, income, marital status, place of birth, and Charlson comorbidity index. Inverse probability weighting was used to account for drop-out during study. Results GCA patients had higher rate of healthcare visits than the references from the year before GCA diagnosis up to four years after diagnosis with the largest relative (rate ratio [95% CI]: 1.85 [1.68, 2.05]) and absolute (mean difference [95% CI]: 10.2 [8.1, 12.3] visits per-person) differences in the year of diagnosis. Similar trajectories were observed for primary and specialist healthcare visits. For hospital admissions and inpatient days, the differences disappeared one year after diagnosis date. Conclusion Patients with GCA utilized health care services at a significantly higher rate than a reference population. The increased utilization among Swedish patients with GCA was evident one year before and prolonged up to four years after diagnosis date.