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Vertigo and dizziness cause considerable more health care resource use and costs: results from the KORA FF4 study

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Abstract

Objectives

Vertigo is a common reason for primary care consultations, and its diagnosis and treatment consume considerable medical resources. However, limited information on the specific cost of vertigo is currently available. The aim of this study is to analyse the health care costs of vertigo and examine which individual characteristics would affect these costs.

Study design

We used cross-sectional data from the German KORA (“Cooperative Health Research in the Augsburg Region”) FF4 study in 2013.

Methods

Impact of personal characteristics and other factors was modelled using a two-part model. Information on health care utilisation was collected by self-report.

Results

We included 2277 participants with a mean age of 60.8 (SD = 12.4), 48.4% male. Moderate or severe vertigo was reported by 570 (25.0%) participants. People with vertigo spent 818 Euro more than people without vertigo in the last 12 months (2720.9 Euro to 1902.9 Euro, SD = 4873.3 and 5944.1, respectively). Consultation costs at primary care physicians accounted for the largest increase in total health care costs with 177.2 Euro (p < 0.01). After adjusting for covariates, the presence of vertigo increased both the probability of having any health care costs (OR = 1.6, 95% CI =[1.2;2.4]) and the amount of costs (exp(β) = 1.3, 95% CI = [1.1;1.5]). The analysis of determinants of vertigo showed that private insurance and a medium level of education decreased the probability of any costs, while higher income increased it.

Conclusions

The presence of vertigo and dizziness required considerable health care resources and created significantly more related costs in different health care sectors for both primary and pertinent secondary care.

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Acknowledgements

Amanda Phillips provided writing assistance and language editing.

Funding

This study was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF IFB 01EO1401) and by the State of Bavaria.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometrics and Epidemiology, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Munich, Germany

    X. Wang, Ralf Strobl & E. Grill

  2. German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Marchioninistr 15, 81377, Munich, Germany

    X. Wang, Ralf Strobl & E. Grill

  3. Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Neuherberg, Germany

    R. Holle & H. Seidl

  4. Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Neuherberg, Germany

    A. Peters

  5. Munich Center of Health Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Munich, Germany

    E. Grill

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  1. X. Wang
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  2. Ralf Strobl
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  3. R. Holle
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  4. H. Seidl
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Correspondence to Ralf Strobl.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Bavarian Chamber of Physicians, Munich (FF4: EC No. 06068).

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Wang, X., Strobl, R., Holle, R. et al. Vertigo and dizziness cause considerable more health care resource use and costs: results from the KORA FF4 study. J Neurol 266, 2120–2128 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-019-09386-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-019-09386-x

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