The Direct Costs of Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Cyprus

Background: The traumatic brain injuries are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in our country. But studies that relate to the cost of hospitalization in the Unit are very limited.Objectives: To microeconomically assess the direct costs of patients with traumatic brain injury in Nicosia Hospital.Methodology: We got a convenience sample of all patients (7) who were hospitalized from July to September 2010. (a) The age, duration of stay, severity of incident and costs of all therapeutic procedures were surveyed using descriptive statistics (b) Pearson chi-square was used to investigate correlations between variables. (c) Multivariate Regression Analysis was employed for theinvestigation of factors affecting the cost of treatment. Age, duration of hospitalization and the cost of individual treatments were considered as independent variables for the direct cost. All tests were considered to be significant at a 5% level. Analysis was carried out using SPSS 20.0.Results: The average cost of hospitalization of the patients with traumatic brain injury in the Unit was € 18,659.51 (€ 2,936.56-33,330.2) and SD € 11,191.11. The average number of days of hospitalization was 14.14 (4-34 days) and SD 10.81 days and the average age was 36 years (13-66 years) and SD 20.06 years. Older age was associated with a significant longer stay, p <0.01 and furthermore age and disease severity had statistically significant correlation p <0.001 with the total cost of hospitalization.Conclusions: The cost of hospitalization in the Unit was influenced by age, duration of stay and severity of the patient's status (Glasgow Coma Scale)