Disease burden on health care by pain severity and usual analgesic treatment in patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis: a Spanish nationwide health survey

Objective To estimate disease burden on health care in OA in Spain, determining whether burden differs by pain severity and usual analgesic treatment. Methods A cross-sectional design using the 2017-Spanish-National-Health-Survey was used to abstract data of 5,234 adult patients (women 70.8%; 69.9 years) with a self-reported physician OA diagnosis. Patients were assembled according to pain severity (no/mild, moderate, severe) and use of usual analgesia (treated [66.5%]/untreated). Healthcare resource utilization (HRU) and corresponding costs were expressed Per-Patient-Per-Year (PPPY) and adjusted for covariates. (.)