The direct costs, related to consultation, diagnostic investigations, treatments, and hospital admissions accounted for less than 30% of total costs in most studies.
The interview guides thus combined a thematic structure (views of OA, its effects and the following adjustments, description and evaluation of the patients' therapeutic journey, expectations, and fears and beliefs) with chronological sequences to detail the therapeutic journey and the course of consultation: diagnostic routines, information giving, prescribing, advice for lifestyle, and referrals.
The fees include the consultation, diagnostic tests and drugs.
Out-of-pocket spending were collected for various items including registration, drugs, consultation, diagnostic tests, surgery, daily bed rates among others.
The medical problems presented during consultations are recorded using International Classification of Primary Care ICPCcodesdes [ 9] and associated free text is used to report reason for consultation, diagnostic procedures performed, medication prescribed and referrals to secondary care.
SHR includes data on the type of consultation (eg, public/private, primary, specialist or hospitalisations), type of healthcare professional (physician, nurse, physiotherapist, etc), date of consultation, diagnostic codes and surgical and/or injury codes where relevant.
All interview guidelines were as similar as possible to allow comparisons across groups and followed the normal course of a consultation: diagnostic routines, information giving, prescribing, advices for a lifestyle change and referral.
The direct OOP health expenditures included fees for consultation, diagnostic tests, medicines, medical supplies and all non-medical expenses including travel expenses, subsistence cost at the facility and all other related payments.
The Consultations in Primary Care Archive (CiPCA) is a database that contains patient consultation data, which includes the practice code, date of consultation, diagnostic Read Code, type of encounter (new or follow-up), location (home visit, surgery, telephone), and free text, which is limited to 255 characters.
ED data were generally most complete of all study sites (e.g., no missing cases for consultations, diagnostics tests; 14.8% missing for final diagnosis).
