Introduction: The costs deriving from strokes are important from a social point of view because this is a pathology with a substantial individual, familial and social impact. Cost-of-illness studies provide an overall description of the economic aspects of strokes. The widest perspective is the social one, where all the costs and consequences are included. If possible, it is wise to take a bottom-up approach.
Aims: To calculate the costs deriving from strokes from the social perspective in the population of a district health service (12,000 inhabitants) by means of a retrospective incidence approach (follow-up at three years) and a bottom-up procedure. We also intended to calculate the fractions that can be attributed to primary care, hospital care and social care.
Patients and methods: Our study included all the cases of stroke diagnosed between 1st January 1999 and 31st December 2003 within a basic health care district in Navarre (n = 91).
Data collection: an ad hoc questionnaire -the CACV (cerebrovascular accident cost) questionnaire- which assessed the 'incremental' costs due to strokes and their complications.
Results: The average cost was found to be 5,759.50 euro for the first year, 3,596.60 euro for the second and 4,671.30 euro for the third. The cost in the first year is marked by the hospital care, which accounts for 50% of the total. From the second year onwards the costs of outpatient care become very important, since they represent 70% of the overall costs.
Conclusions: The costs deriving from strokes in the first three years amount to almost 5,000 euro/year. More cerebrovascular cost-of-illness studies need to be conducted from the social perspective and should therefore include the costs of informal care.