Partial results from a new study named the ‘Cost of Asthma in Childhood’ shows that on average, each asthmatic child will visit a hospital emergency department 1.6 to 1.9 times a year.
Released to mark World Asthma Day, which was on Tuesday (3 May), the study also shows that between €400 and €700 is spent on every child that visits hospital emergency units or has unscheduled consultations because of uncontrolled asthma.
“It has been found that the main exacerbating factor on [health] costs is uncontrolled asthma. The average cost per child with uncontrolled asthma is two to three times higher than that spent on a child with asthma that is under control” penned the authors of the study, spearheaded by a professor from the Research Centre for Technologies and Health Services, with the support of the Gulbenkian Foundation.
The work took into account Portuguese asthmatic children up to the age of 17, of whom there are around 175,000 in Portugal, which represents 8.4 percent of the total.
The research further assessed the impact of asthma on the children’s daily lives and found that, every year, Portugal’s asthmatic children miss 500,000 days of school because of their illness, or, on average, an asthmatic child will miss six days of school per year.
It concluded that truancy among schoolchildren and the respective absenteeism from work by parents or guardians is three times higher among those whose asthma has yet to be brought under control.
Asthma is a chronic disease and has no cure, but can be controlled with medication.
The condition is considered ‘under control’ when there are no symptoms and no need for relief or minimum medications, and where there is an absence of attacks or exacerbations.