Cost-of-illness of patients with contact dermatitis in Denmark.

BACKGROUND

Contact dermatitis is a frequent occupational and non-occupational skin disease.

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the effects of contact dermatitis on labour market affiliation and societal costs in terms of healthcare costs and production loss.

METHODS

A total of 21 441 patients patch tested either in hospital departments or at dermatological clinics in the period 2004-2009 were included in the study. The analyses were stratified by children (age 0-15 years), occupational contact dermatitis (age 16-65 years), and non-occupational dermatitis (age ≥ 16 years). Controls were selected from a 30% random sample of the population. Individual encrypted data were retrieved on healthcare utilization, socio-demographics, education, labour market affiliation and transfer payments from public registers in Denmark for cases and controls.

RESULTS

Attributable healthcare costs for 4 years prior to patch testing (1 year for children) and the year after patch testing were €959 for children, €724 for occupational contact dermatitis, and €1794 for non-occupational dermatitis. Productivity costs for the same period were €10 722 for occupational contact dermatitis and €3074 for non-occupational contact dermatitis.

CONCLUSIONS

The main findings of this study were that there were statistically significant attributable healthcare costs for both children and adults, and statistically significant productivity loss for adults.