Non-Drug Expenditure Incurred in the Management of Diabetes Mellitus by Patients Attending the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, South East Nigeria

Abstract

Aim: To assess the non-drug expenditure incurred by patients who are being managed for diabetes mellitus at the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital, Enugu South East Nigeria. Method; A cross-sectional study was applied to assess the non-drug expenditure incurred by a total of 422patients diagnosed with type-2 diabetes mellitus who are receiving treatment at the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital in the year 2021. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain information on the number of days and hours of their work lost due to the illness, the amount of money they spend on hiring house-helps who assist in taking care of their illness, the amount of money they spend on transportation to secure treatment and in taking care of the complications due to their illness. Lastly the costs incurred in providing for the special diets that they take and the physiotherapy (where applicable). The data was analysed using an appropriate statistical package and the results were presented in the form of tables and graphs. Results; As a result of the illness, about 60.4% missed work for at least 10 days in a year while 40.8% spend 2-4 hours in each visit to the hospital. 35.3% needed an extra household help with majority paying <N5,000 as stipend. About 32.7% spend less than N2,000 on transportation to the hospital to attend clinics. Out of the 38.6% who had developed complications 14% claimed they spend between N5000 – N10000 annually on managing those complications. Conclusion; The findings indicate that diabetic patients incur a lot of expenditure which are not usually very obvious in the management of their condition. Assessment of the cost of managing diabetes mellitus based on the drugs and other accessories like test kits could be very misleading because the non-drug costs could far outweigh the drug costs as can be seen in this study.

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