Graduate Institute of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Room 220, 33, Linsen S. Rd, Taipei, 10050, Taiwan.
Department of Pharmacy, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
BMC Public Health. 2018 Mar 20;18(1):369. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5247-6.
The objectives of this study were to characterize the burden of herpes zoster, as well as the longitudinal and incremental changes of healthcare service utilization among individuals with herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) compared to those without.
Using the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD), we established a herpes zoster cohort of people diagnosed with herpes zoster between 2004 and 2008 as study cases. Another subset of the NHIRD, which was randomly selected from all elderly beneficiaries between 2004 and 2008 served as a non-herpes-zoster elderly control pool. Each case was then assigned one matched control according to age, gender, index date and propensity score. PHN cases were defined as those with persisting pain for more than 90 days after the onset of herpes zoster.
Between 2004 and 2008, about 0.6 million patients were newly diagnosed with herpes zoster. The incidence increased with age, and most cases were identified during the summer period. Herpes zoster cases were found to have higher consumption of all types of healthcare services in the first year after the index date. Such increases were particularly obvious for patients with PHN, who showed incremental increases on average of 16.3 outpatient visits, 0.4 emergency room visits and 0.24 inpatient admissions per year.
The incidence of herpes zoster increased with age and changed according to the seasons. Patients with herpes zoster were associated with higher healthcare utilization and this increase in healthcare utilization was most obvious for herpes zoster patients with PHN.
本研究旨在描述带状疱疹的负担，以及与未患有带状疱疹和带状疱疹后神经痛（PHN）的个体相比，带状疱疹患者和 PHN 患者的医疗服务利用的纵向和增量变化。
我们使用国家健康保险研究数据库（NHIRD），建立了一个 2004 年至 2008 年期间诊断为带状疱疹的患者的带状疱疹队列作为研究病例。NHIRD 的另一个子集是从 2004 年至 2008 年期间所有老年受益人的随机选择，作为非带状疱疹老年对照组。然后，根据年龄、性别、索引日期和倾向评分，为每个病例分配一个匹配的对照。PHN 病例被定义为带状疱疹发病后持续疼痛超过 90 天的患者。
2004 年至 2008 年间，约有 60 万名患者新诊断为带状疱疹。发病率随年龄增长而增加，大多数病例发生在夏季。带状疱疹病例在索引日期后的第一年中，各种类型的医疗服务消费均有所增加。对于 PHN 患者，这种增加尤为明显，平均每年增加 16.3 次门诊就诊、0.4 次急诊就诊和 0.24 次住院就诊。
带状疱疹的发病率随年龄增长而增加，并根据季节变化。带状疱疹患者与更高的医疗保健利用率相关，而带状疱疹伴有 PHN 的患者的医疗保健利用率增加最为明显。
