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Category: Health, lifestyle published by Younus published: Apr 07, 2019, 11:22 pm EST Update: Apr 07, 2019, 11:22 pm EST
Washington DC: On World Health Day, new research shows that the total financial cost of a heart attack or stroke is two times higher than medical costs when the time lost to work patients and caregivers are taken into account.
The discovery illustrated by the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology indicates that heart attack and stroke victims who return to work are 25% less productive the first year. In the year following the event, cardiac patients lost 59 days of work and informal caregivers, 11 working days, for an average cost of € 13,953 and ranging from € 6,641 to € 23,160. depending on the country.
After a stroke, patients and carers lost 56 working days, for an average of 13,773 euros, ranging from 10,469 euros to 20,215 euros.
Professor Kornelia Kotseva, the author of the study, said: "The patients in our study have returned to work, which means that their events were relatively mild. Some still had to change jobs or careers, or work less and caregivers lost about 5% of their working time. Our study does not include people with more serious events who have stopped working altogether and would likely need more help from family and friends. "
The study included 394 patients from seven European countries – 196 with acute coronary syndrome (86% heart attack, 14% unstable chest pain) and 198 with stroke – who returned to work from 3 to 12 months after the event. Patients completed a questionnaire2,3 during a visit to a cardiologist, a neurologist or a stroke doctor. The lost hours were evaluated based on the country's labor costs in 2018. The average age of the patients was 53 years old.
Some patients lost their productivity during the process, which is the same in all countries: 61% corresponded to initial hospitalization and sick leave after discharge; 23-29% were work absences after the first sick leave (for medical appointments and shorter sick days); 9 to 16% were unable to work at full capacity because of their discomfort.
Even more, days of work were lost in the first year after the event for patients with past events or established cardiovascular disease. Adding the number of days lost by the patients and the caregivers, it was 80 for the acute coronary syndrome and 73 for a stroke, costing respectively 16 061 euros and 14 942 euros.
In the study, 27% of heart patients and 20% of stroke patients were obese, while 40% of cardiac patients and 27% of stroke patients were current smokers.
Source: ANI
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