Cost of hospitalizations related to side-effects of drugs

The French network of Regional Pharmacovigilance Centres evaluated in 1997 the prevalence of adverse effects of drugs (AED). In 1998, and again with t he support of the French Drug Agency, in collaboration with the company CEM KA for economic evaluations, the incidence of AED-related hospitalizations in the medical department of French public hospitals was studied. The evalu ation was performed over 14 consecutive days in 62 hospital departments, wh ich were selected randomly. The total number of 3137 patients were hospital ized for a mean duration of 9 days and they were using a mean number of six different drugs. Taking into account the number of about 4 million patient s admitted per year in the hospitals represented, it was estimated that the total number of AED-related hospitalizations amounts to about 130 000 annu ally (CI95%: 100 916-156 620). Using established cost calculations for hosp italized days (AP-HP, results of 1996) the mean cost for an AED-related hos pitalization was estimated to be about FF16 000.