Journal Article

SAT0706 Incidence of psoriatic arthritis in germany: analysis of claims data from 65 million people from 2009 to 2012

Schneider, M., Sewerin, P., Ostendorf, B., Brinks, R., Haase, I.

2018

Overview

BackgroundEpidemiological studies are important for understanding the etiology and burden of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Currently, there are no data available about the incidence of PsA in Germany.ObjectivesThis study aims to estimate the age-standardised incidence of diagnosed PsA for German men and women during 2009 to 2012.MethodsEstimation of the incidence of a chronic disease from prevalence data is possible if information about the general mortality and excess mortality of diseased compared to non-diseased people are available in terms of the hazard ratio (HR).1 Prevalence was extracted from the complete diagnosis data (in- and outpatient) from about 80% of the overall German population during 2009 to 2012. Diagnoses are based on claims data from all insurances of the German statutory health insurance (SHI) system. After determining the age-standardised sex-specific prevalence of PsA for each of the four years, the age-standardised incidence for men and women has been estimated. General mortality was obtained from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Since the HR is unknown in Germany, we use different scenarios motivated from a systematic review2 in the range from 1.3 to 1.6.ResultsFor each of the years from 2009 to 2012, a total of 127, 138, 146 and 156 thousand patients with diagnosed PsA were identified in about 65 million people from the SHI, respectively. The age-standardised prevalence increases from 1.8 to 2.1 per mil in men, and from 2.1 to 2.5 per mil in women. The estimated age-standardised incidence over the study period is shown in the figure 1. Over the study period, the incidence rate of PsA decreases for both sexes and the rate of men is lower than the rate of women. The average incidence rates are 11.5 and 14.5 per 100’000 person-years for men and women, respectively. This means that about 4700 men and 5900 women contract PsA each year. The impact of the different scenarios in HR is small.ConclusionsThese data from about 65 million people insured in the German SHI for the first time allow an estimation of the incidence of PsA in Germany. A selection bias is likely to be present, because the roughly 20% of the overall German population who could not included in the analysis (mainly privately insured people) are known to have other health risks. However, the results refer to the vast majority of the German population. The analysis cannot be adjusted for potential confounders other than age and sex (e.g., socio-economic position or presence of co-morbidities).References[1] Brinks R, Landwehr S, DOI: 10.1093/imammb/dqu024[2] Gladman DD. Mortality in psoriatic arthritis, Clin Experim Rheuma26(5):S62.Disclosure of InterestNone declared

• Publisher: Elsevier Limited
• Subject: Age / Arthritis / Chronic illnesses / Data processing / Epidemiology / Etiology / Mortality / Psoriatic arthritis / Women