APPROACHES TO ESTIMATING INDIRECT COSTS IN HEALTHCARE: MOTIVATIONS FOR CHOICE

When performing health economic evaluations all costs and expected benefits (in terms of clinical effectiveness, utility, monetary benefits) should be taken into account. Costs are direct indirect: concerning the latter, two main methods have been developed. The Human Capital Approach (HCA) considers gross salary in days absence from work due to illness; method based on Friction (FC), instead, equally value productivity, but losses limited period illness when it is necessary replace absent worker. This paper conducts a review literature contributions for European countries aims at identifying common trends within geographical areas. Estimation indirect different areas may reflect real cost services across schematize conditions under which certain preferred. Overall, analyses applying HCA most frequent, while studies FC more Netherlands, where this had reasons apply or depend institutional context, example, flexibility job market, epidemiologic environment.