Comparative study of cost-effectiveness of annual physical examination programs for civil servant in Bangkok area according to the ministry of finance regulation and guideline of the royal college of physicians of Thailand
Abstract:
At the present time there was still no information about the most cost-effective health examination for asymtomatic adult population in Thailand. The purpose of this descriptive study was to compare of cost- effectiveness of annual physical examination programs for civil servant in Bangkok Area according to the Ministry of Finance Regulation and the guideline of The Royal College of Physicains of Thailand. The study was conducted by using the annual health examination data of those who were examined by the mobile unit of Preventive Medicine clinic, Chulalongkom Memmorial Hospital during 1999-2002. Study results showed that the prevalence of abnormal blood chemistry results increased according to age. Cost-effectiveness analytical results for detecting one abnormal case from one-hundred persons who were examined were : for fasting blood sugar, 36,630.04-37,735.85 and 12,228.68-12,547.05 baths for every-year and every-three-year examination programs respectively. However, the numbers of those who lost opportunity from 1-2 years delayed detection for the every-three-year programs were 0.21%-0.22%. Cost-effectiveness results for cholesterol were 266.80-1968.50, 120.74-621.89 and 70.56-372.85 baths for every-year, every-three-year and every-five-year examination programs respectively, with numbers of lost opportunity case from 1-2 years and 1-4 years delayed detection of 5.29%-25.63% and 10.58%-52.12% for every-three-year and every-five-year programs respectively. Those results for triglyceride were 13,769.36-16,393.44, 4,616.27-5,416.38 and 2,785.51-4,071.24 baths for every-year, every-three-year and every-five-year examination programs respectively, with numbers of lost opportunity case from 1-2 years and 1-4 years delayed detection of 0.98%-1.15% and 1.47%-2.29% for every-three-year and every-five-year programs respectively. In conclusion, the physical examination programs for civil servant according to the guideline of The Royal College of Physicains of Thailand tend to be the most cost-effective. The numbers of lost opportunity cases from delayed detection may partly be minimized by the high-risk screening questionnaire.