Financial burden and social implications of chronic liver disease in a patient population group in Pakistan

Objective: To assess economic and social issues faced by cirrhotic patients & its financial burden for developing nations like Pakistan. Method: This cross-sectional study was carried out at the Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan during the period between July & December 2019. Patients with liver cirrhosis were recruited and information regarding disease, financial status, treatment expenses & dependency was recorded. Results: A total of 450 patients were recruited, 272 (60%) were males & 178 (40%) were females, with mean age 55.4±6.2 years. HCV was cause of cirrhosis in 86% of cases, 65% were diagnosed incidentally and 39.6% were illiterate. About 82.7% were urban while only 28.7% own their own home. Co-morbid conditions including diabetes, hypertension & ischemic heart disease were present in 54% of cases. Monthly income was <PKR 45,000 in 23% of cases while 47% were non-earning. Conclusions: Our study shows the financial difficulties & dependency faced by patients with liver cirrhosis. Aggressive national screening is required to discover infected patients before cirrhosis develops. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.40.7.7976 How to cite this: Salim A, Farooq MO, Saleem S, Malik K. Financial burden and social implications of chronic liver disease in a patient population group in Pakistan. Pak J Med Sci. 2024;40(7):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.40.7.7976 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.