The cost of diabetes: Summary

26 September 2002

DiabCost Australia, the first large scale national study into the burden of Type 2 diabetes, was released at the Australian Diabetes Society and Australian Diabetes Educators Association National Scientific Meeting in Adelaide. The report shows that as the complications of diabetes increase the costs escalate.

The Cost Burden

• The burden of diagnosed type 2 diabetes in Australia is an estimated $3 billion a year, with average costs per person at $5,360 plus $5,540 in benefits, totalling $10,900.
• The cost per person increases with the onset of complications
• $4,020 without complications
• $9,625 with both microvascular and macrovascular complications (2.8 times higher)
• The main components of direct health costs were hospitalisation due to complications (32 per cent) and the use of medicines to treat complications (26 per cent)
• diabetes medication to control the disease accounted for only 4 per cent of all healthcare costs
• Each person received an average of $5,540 in government subsidies such as pensions and sickness benefits

Prevalence of Complications

• 22.5 per cent had microvascular complications alone, 2 per cent macrovascular complications alone, 8.7 per cent suffered both and 66.8 per cent had no complications
• Macrovascular complications reported were heart attack (8.9 per cent) and stroke (6.9 per cent)
• Microvasular complications reported were foot/leg ulcers (9.0 per cent), eye problems (26.6 per cent), kidney problems (10.4 per cent) and amputation (4.9 per cent)

Use of Healthcare Resources and Quality of Life

• Respondents visited their general practitioner a mean of 10.5 times each year, received 0.4 home visits and had a mean of 1.1 outpatient visits
• Of those admitted to hospital, the duration of stay averaged 23.2 nights
Quality of life and carer burden
• Problems reported included mobility (32.3 per cent), self care (6.5 per cent), difficulty in performing usual activities (26.5 per cent), pain/discomfort (38.4 per cent), moderate anxiety/depression (30.3 per cent)
• 10 per cent of the people surveyed had a carer
• People with microvascular complications were 2.6 times more likely to have a carer
• Those with macrovascular complications were 3.7 times more likely to have carer
• Those with both were 3.8 times more likely to have a carer

Survey Details

• The questionnaire was mailed to 25,000 people with type 2 diabetes randomly selected from the National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) database
• A total of 10,652 responses were received (42.6 per cent response rate)
• There were equal numbers of males and females, mean age was 65.2 years and mean duration of diabetes 5.4 years
• A total of 8.7 per cent of respondents were smokers
• A total of 33 per cent were treated with diet and exercise alone, 59.6 per cent with an oral antidiabetic medication and 6.7 per cent with insulin either alone or in combination with an oral medication

Download the Full report here.