The social and economic burden of stroke survivors in Italy: a prospective, incidence-based, multi-centre cost of illness study

The aim of this study was to estimate the one-year societal costs due to a stroke event in Italy and to investigate variables associated with costs in different phases following hospital admission. The patients were enrolled in 44 hospitals across the country and data on socio-demographic, clinical variables and resource consumption were prospectively surveyed for 411 stroke survivors at admission, discharge and 3, 6 and 12 months post the event. We adopted a micro-costing procedure to identify cost generating components and the attribution of appropriate unit costs for three cost categories: direct healthcare, direct non-healthcare (including informal care costs) and productivity losses. The significant role of informal care in stroke management and different distribution of costs over time suggest that appropriate planning should look at both incident and prevalent stroke cases to forecast health infrastructure needs and more importantly, to assure that stroke patients have adequate “social” support.