Hospitalisation of a child in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) involves major stress for parents. They wish to stay at their child's bedside while at the same time giving the usual attention to their other children. The resultant out-of-pocket expenses have rarely been studied.
Over a 6-month period all the families of children hospitalised in our PICU for more than 4 days, speaking French and insured by our social security system, were eligible for inclusion. Participation was proposed only after diagnosis, treatment and prognosis had been determined. Costs were retrieved from a diary list of customised items and computed as the amount in excess of usual expenses until the end of the hospital stay.
117 children were hospitalised in our PICU for a total of 131 stays. The families of 16 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. One dropped out after a week at the parents' request. The children's age was 2.9 +/- 3.8 years and 67% were male. The majority had malformations (53%) or infections (33%). The total length of stay was 49 +/- 51 days, of which 24 +/- 41 were spent in the PICU. On average, parents spent CHF 86 +/- 31 every day, mainly on travel and meals. Over the entire hospital stay their expenses amounted to CHF 4,078 +/- 4,552.
Direct out-of-pocket expenses for parents of children hospitalised in the PICU are considerable. Improvement in the social security system may be necessary to address this issue.