Abstract Aims Productivity Adjusted Life Year (PALY) metric is a novel measure for exploring the societal impact of health conditions on work productivity. Given that stroke is a major cause of disability-adjusted life years and the crucial role of caregivers in post-stroke care, our study aims to quantify the PALY and the quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) loss associated with stroke caregivers. Methods and results The model compared the Australian stroke informal carer group and a hypothetical cohort of non-carers over 30 years of follow-up (2023–2052 using the working-age population, aged 15–65 years). A life table model was constructed using Microsoft Excel® (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA). Key data were obtained from literature and publicly available data. Labour force participation rates were applied to population estimates to arrive at the approximate number of full-time equivalents, which was then multiplied by the productivity index and years of life lived (YLL) to estimate PALYs and the utility values were multiplied by YLL to estimate QALYs. All costs are presented as 2022 Australian dollars (AUD). Over a 30 year period, 27 551 QALYs, 67 488 PALYs and 14.7 billion AUD were lost due to the health and productivity burden among informal care of stroke patients. On average, the annual informal carer losses were 918 QALYs and 2250 PALYs and 490 million AUD. Conclusion Our analyses demonstrate the health and economic consequences among informal caregivers of stroke patients over the forthcoming decades and highlight the need for interventions to reduce the burden of stroke and its impact.
Das et al. (Tue,) studied this question.