Direct and indirect costs of epilepsy

A systematic review of epilepsy cost-of-illness studies was conducted, with adjustments made to generate single per-person and epilepsy-attributable total healthcare and indirect costs, and estimated costs for countries with missing data according to those of countries in the same income category.¹ Data from the Global Burden of Disease study was used to estimate the prevalence of epilepsy.¹ Costs were calculated for US dollar values in 2019.¹ A total of 101 studies was included for the estimation of healthcare costs, and 13 studies were included for estimation of indirect costs.¹ The treatment gaps (people not diagnosed or receiving treatment for epilepsy) data was obtained from the published literature.¹ For all the cost data there were substantial gaps between each level of country income, with total healthcare costs of $0.2 billion in LICs, $4.3 billion in LMICs, $28.5 billion in UMICs, and $45.9 billion in HICs.¹

Reference:

1.Begley C, Wagner RG, Abraham A, et al. The global cost of epilepsy: a systematic review and extrapolation. Epilepsia 2022; 63 (4): 892–903.