Costs arising from otitis media

Otitis media (OM) is one of the most common diseases of childhood, and causes both direct and indirect costs to families and to society. This study calculated the costs arising from OM among 736 day care children whose infections were prospectively monitored for up to 15 mo in 10 day care centres in the city of Oulu. The children in the survey had 1. 5 attacks of acute OM per person year, made 2. 1 visits to a physician (cost US55 visit (-1) ) and received 1. 5 courses of antimicrobials (cost 24 course (-1) ). Their parents were absent from work for 1. 9 d per person year (cost 85 d (-1) ). Either adenoidectomy (890 operation (-1) ) or tympanostomy (740) was performed on 6% of the children and the overall costs of surgery were 80 per person year at risk. In total, each single attack of acute OM cost 228. The average annual costs per child younger than 2 y were 1040, those for children aged 2-3 y 283 and those for children older than 3 y 141. The cumulative costs from age 6 mo to 7 y were 2549 child (-1). When the attributable risk of OM at a day care centre is taken into account, in Finland, a country with about 5 million inhabitants, OM gives rise to total annual costs of US138 million. OM leads to considerable expenses and even expensive preventive measures would be cost-effective.