Real-world patient characteristics, treatment patterns, and healthcare resource utilization and costs of tardive dyskinesia in Germany

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) may increase healthcare burden for patients with underlying psychiatric disorders. To examine treatment patterns, healthcare resource utilization, and costs for patients with TD in Germany, a retrospective claims analysis using the Institute for Applied Health Research Berlin (InGef) database was conducted for the study period 2016-2022. Adults with International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, German Modification code G24.0 (drug-induced dystonia, including TD) recorded ≥2 times in 2 different quarters within 1 year during the enrollment period (2017-2021) were included in the overall TD population. The first observable code G24.0 marked the TD index date. Patients without any code G24.0 in the 4 quarters prior to index quarter were included in the incident TD population. Patients with incident TD were matched (1:3) to non-TD controls using propensity score matching analysis. Among 3,236,637 patients in the InGef research database, 389 adults with TD were identified (mean [SD] age 67.2 [16.0] years, 64.0% female, 21.1% with claims for authorized treatments for TD [tetrabenazine or tiapride]). In the matched incident TD cohort (n = 145), proportions of patients with all-cause hospitalizations (62.1% vs 48.7%), emergency department visits (35.9% vs 25.1%) and neurologist outpatient visits (69.7% vs 40.5%) were significantly greater (p ≤ 0.01) than in non-TD controls (n = 435). Annual post-index mean all-cause total healthcare costs were significantly higher for the incident TD cohort compared with non-TD controls (€13,176 vs €7288; p < 0.001). Higher healthcare costs in the incident TD population were driven by increased inpatient encounters.