Burden of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in hospitalized Thai adults: an analysis of data from the National Health Insurance System 2010.

BACKGROUND

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection continues to be a major health problem worldwide. Whether several intervention programs are successful enough to ameliorate the significant hospitalization burden created by these patients is not known.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the burden of HIV infection on patient-hospitalization and death in the adult population using in-patient information from the three health insurance coverage schemes from the fiscal year 2010.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

The authors analyzed the data on in-patients with ICD-10 coding B20-B24 HIV disease to obtain the admission and mortality rate, length of hospital stay and hospital charges.

RESULTS

The admission rate among adult HIV-infected patients was 91.8 times per 100,000 adult population. The most common age group affected by the disease was the 26-40 year-olds (59%). The most common condition causing hospitalization was opportunistic infection (83.6%), of which tuberculosis was the highest. The mortality rate was 10.3% and increasing with age. AIDS-related symptoms, malignancy and opportunistic infections were the major impacts on mortality.

CONCLUSION

HIV/AIDS still constitutes a major disease burden among the adult Thai population. Increased public awareness and prevention and access to early HIV diagnosis and treatment could be key factors for lowering the burden of disease and improving clinical outcomes.