Prevalence of extraintestinal symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

Background: The health related economic impact of functional digestive disorders including functional dyspepsia (FD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has not been well quantified. Estimates of economic impact are useful in understanding the long-term consequences of disease and allocating scarce health research resources at the national and international levels. Economic impact estimates should include both direct costs the value of health care resources consumed, as well as indirect costs in terms of labor productivity gains or losses due to illness. Aims: The aims of this study are to extrapolate from the only known national survey on the economic impact of IBS to other Organization for Economic Cooperative Development (OECD) countries in order to estimate the country specific economic impact adjusted for per capita health care spending rates. Methods: Direct and indirect cost estimates from a national Canadian survey conducted in 1997 were incorporated into an econometric model in order to calculate country specific estimates of the total economic impact of IBS. The model parameters included the Canada per capita cost, adjusted for nation specific 1995 population, weighted disease prevalence rate, health care spending multiplier, and compound growth rate of health care spending. Results: