Abstract:
Pakistan is categorized to below to middle income countries where two third of the national annual health
expenditure is in the form of out of pocket (OOP) cost. A prevalence based study was conducted to determine the OOP cost treatment of hypertension in Karachi by interviewing 350 hypertensive patients aged >30 years through a validated questionnaire. Hypertension (HTN) was classified into stage 1 and stage 2 and was found to be common in females (53.42%) than males (46.57%). The total costs of stage 1and stage 2 HTN were calculated to be217869.7PKR and17545457.6 PKR respectively. The average treatment cost of stage 1 was observed to be significantly lower (p=0.006) than the cost of stage 2 HTN. Moreover; the cost of antihypertensive drugs, physician fees and laboratory tests were considerably different however; no variation was seen in cost of transport and loss of productivity through absenteeism from work. Overall, the present study indicates that the antihypertensive treatment has imposed a high burden on the pocket of common man and this is a major reason for treatment non-adherence. Consequently, it increases the risks of cardiovascular events, morbidity and mortality. Therefore, effective strategic planning is need of time to reduce OOP cost for better control on hypertension in Pakistan.
