[Economic costs of childhood epilepsy in Spain].

Introduction: Health expenditure increases continuously in all developed countries. Common disorders, including epilepsy are responsible for most of the health budget.

Objective: To quantify the economic effect of childhood epilepsy in Spain by analyzing its major components.

Patients And Methods: We asked a number of neuropediatricians to complete to questionnaire including data from which to calculate, from a social aspect, the direct and indirect costs (medical and non-medical) of the last 12 months follow-up of children under 14 years old with controlled and uncontrolled epilepsy.

Results: During 1998, the average annual cost of children with controlled epilepsy was 308,352 pesetas and of children with uncontrolled epilepsy 823,635 pesetas, or 2.7 times more. The cost of the prevalence of epilepsy in Spain during 1998 was nearly 11,300 million pesetas with direct costs making up most of the total cost.

Conclusions: The size of the economic aspect increases the impact of the disease on the child and his family. The different cost distribution in children and in adults with epilepsy makes early treatment necessary so as to permit lower indirect costs of the disease when the patient becomes adult. Pharmaco-economic assessment is also necessary to justify the use of newer anti-epileptic drugs which are considerably more expensive than the classical anti-epileptic drugs.