Economic burden of varicella in Europe in the absence of universal varicella vaccination

BMC Public Health

Table 2 Descriptive statistics of extracted unit cost and utilization outcomes in high income (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK) and low- and middle-income (Czechia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Romania) countries

Unit parameter	Median	Min	Max
a. High income countries
Cost of physician visit (EUR)	325.08	4.52 [29]	72.41 [22]
Cost of 1 day hospitalization (EUR)	554.36	128.85 [24]	1304.44 [9]
Length of hospitalization (days)	4.85	1.7 [67]	9 [43]
Cost of OTC medications (EUR)	14.34	2.05 [24]	15.86 [18]
Utilization OTC medications^a (%)	100	100 [24]	100 [24]
Cost of prescribed medications (EUR)	15.16	2.8 [35]	25.77 [23]
Utilization of prescribed medications (%)	70.3	47.7 [82]	100 [8]
Work lost by caregiver^b (days)	1.42	0.3^] [70]	6.6 [57]
Work lost by patient^b (days)	8.1	1.44 [18]	18.72 [5]
b. Low- and middle-income countries
Cost of physician visit (EUR)	29.02	9.55 [30]	52.29 [34]
Cost of 1 day hospitalization (EUR)	155.35	97.03 [30]	629 [32]
Length of hospitalization (days)	5.89	3.6 [30]	7.9 [68]
Cost of OTC medications (EUR)	0.55	0.4 [30]	4.84 [32]
Utilization of OTC medications^a (%)	96	80 [34]	100 [32]
Cost of prescribed medications (EUR)	21.39	9.4 [34]	31.57 [30]
Utilization of prescribed medications (%)	72	9.3 [30]	100 [32]
Work lost by caregiver^b (days)	2.61	0.6 [31]	4.98 [78]
Work lost by patient^b (days)	6.8	2.6 [49]	11 [31]

^a available for 4 countries; despite the fact that the parameter was available for less than 5 countries (cf. selection criterion), it was decided to include it in the cost model because the associated parameter, cost of OTC medications, was already included
^b for outpatient cases

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