The direct cost of autism and its economic impact on the Filipino family

@#<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Background.</strong> The increasing prevalence of autism has significantly impacted the health care spending of many families worldwide. To date, families from low to middle-income countries are burdened with out-of-pocket spending as their local health care systems have yet to incorporate autism-related services into the health care infrastructure.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objectives.</strong> This study aimed to determine the direct costs of diagnosing and caring for children with autism and analyze its impact on the Filipino family.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Methods.</strong> The cross-sectional study consisted of a self-administered questionnaire that looked at parents' employment status, family income, and the direct costs for consultations, diagnostic tests, therapy, education, and medications. Study participants were parents living with their child diagnosed with autism, ages 2 to 6 years old at the time of the study.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Results.</strong> One hundred fifty-eight parents participated in the survey for the cost of care for children with autism. Sixty-seven (42.4%) of parents received government or subsidized medical services for their children's consultation and/ or intervention, while the rest went to private centers or hospitals. The total costs for all evaluations that confirmed the autism diagnosis ranged from ?1,356 to ?44,634 and averaged ?7,411.80 per child. Overall, the mean cost of interventions post-diagnosis, including therapy, education, medications, and developmental evaluations for the first year, was ?38,868 or ?3,239 per month (21% percent of the monthly expenditures for a household with an income of ?15,000/month). The total cost of care per child was closely related to the family's revenue in the sample population. Families with higher incomes also had higher expenditures for autism-related services.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conclusion.</strong> Autism imposes a significant economic burden on Filipino families, particularly the minimum-wage household earners who spent a higher proportion of their budget (21%) on autism-related services. The wide range of total costs for the care of the children in the study may be explained by the wide variability of the expenses for the services, differences in access to services, socioeconomic status, and the wide variation in needs of children with autism due to the nature of the condition.</p>

Granulocyte Colony Stimulating factor in improving outcomes of Neonatal Sepsis: A meta-analysis

Background@#Neonatal sepsis complicated with neutropenia increases risk of mortality by 50%. The immature neutrophil production of neonates is often overwhelmed by severe infection. Granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), a naturally occurring cytokine used to support neutrophil recovery during chemotherapy, is a possible treatment that can improve outcomes of neonatal sepsis. @*Objectives@#To determine the efficacy of G-CSF in decreasing mortality and morbidity in septic neonates.@*Methodology@#Electronic searches were conducted on online journal databases. Unpublished or ongoing studies ere sought in training institutions accredited by the Philippine Pediatric Society. The investigators included randomized control trials using G-CSF on septic neonates.@*Results@#Twenty-two trials were identified and thirteen were assessed to be eligible for review. The studies had a total of 530 participants, with the largest having 78 subjects. Relative risks (RR), mean differences (MD) and standard mean differences (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) using the fixed effect model and random effects model were reported in the results. There was a significant decrease in mortality (RR 0.69, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.99) with a greater reduction for preterm neonates, low birth weight neonates and neutropenic neonates. There was no significant reduction in morbidities caused by neonatal sepsis.@*Conclusions@#There is moderate quality evidence that suggests that G-CSF as an adjunct treatment for neonatal sepsis significantly decreases mortality with greater benefit to preterm neonates, low birth weight neonates and those with baseline neutropenia. The studies did not show any benefit in reducing sepsis-related morbidity.