The Impact of Chronic Discogenic Low Back Pain: Costs and Patients’ Burden

Table 4

Societal costs per patient in euros divided by cost type (results of the friction cost and human capital cost approach).

Cost type friction costs approach	N^e	Mean^ costs per resource user (CI)	Mean^ cost per patient (CI)	Cum. %
Informal caregiving	37	255.68 (143–368)	118.25 (60–177)	3
Absence work; friction costs	20	15,113 (11090–19135)	3,778.32 (2038–5518)	100
Societal cost per patient: Friction			3,896.57 (2157–5636)
Cost type human capital approach
Informal caregiving	37	255.68 (143–368)	118.25 (60–177)	0.8
Absence work; human capital	31	38,212 (28520–47903)	14,806,95 (9283–20330)	100
Disability wages	11	46,720 (39447–53994)	6,424.03 (2720–10128)
Societal cost per patient: human capital			14,925.20 (9389–20460)

^eNumber of patients per event/service; ^bootstrapped mean; mean costs per patient = costs for all patients including cost per patients without event/service (0€); CI = 95% confidence interval for mean: lower bound-upper bound.