Objective:

To estimate the economic costs related to Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) in a Colombian municipality.

Methods:

A retrospective cost-of-illness study was conducted to estimate economic costs due to ARI in Aquitania-Boyacá. The micro-costing (bottom-up) technique was used to estimate the costs associated with ARI in the municipality of Aquitania-Boyacá. Costs were divided by the following items: consultations, laboratory and images, drugs, materials and supplies and the hospital stay. Measures of central tendency were used to summarize the information with their respective dispersion measures. Statistical analyzes were performed in Microsoft Excel 2013®.

Results:

The 1,576 patients accounted for 2,471 ARI in the Empresa Social del Estado (ESE) Salud Aquitania, of which 15.6% were in the emergency department, 81.4% in the outpatient department and 3% in the hospitalization service. The average length of stay was 2.5 days (maximum of 5 days). The mean cost of a patient with hospitalized ARI was $ 759,437 (ICR $639,132- $ 879,742); for women was $ 753,879 (ICR $548,862- $ 877,895) and for men $ 764,397 (ICR $618,523- $ 910,271). Length of stay was the largest share of total cost per case, with 64%.

Conclusion:

ARI represented a high economic burden to the municipality of Aquitania-Boyacá. The economic burden for the health care system of outpatient in the municipality in 2014 was $78,9 million pesos and that related to hospitalization was $ 56,198,338 (IC95% $ 47,295,768- $ 65,100,908).