Dataset for Low-resource ear, nose, and throat (ENT) disease Cost of treatment: Evidence from a two-centre cross-sectional study

This data assessed the ear, nose, and throat (ENT) disease cost of treatment in a resource-limited setting.
We conducted a prospective review of patient hospital records, and using various structured data collection instruments, we calculated the mean direct cost of treatment and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure for patients under the different treatment schemes, adjusted for inflation and excluding surgical procedures and hospital admission charges. Further, we applied a binary logistic regression model to understand the determinants of OOP expenditure. Our findings demonstrated that OOP expenditure for ENT disease treatment was high for a population experiencing high levels of poverty, limiting access to high-quality medical care. We concluded that while initiatives such as affordable health insurance schemes hold potential, additional measures, including enhanced availability of medication, were essential for ensuring equitable access to quality care and mitigating the burden of treatment costs on patients.
In this available dataset, patients were coded 1 if they were treated under low-cost, 2 if treated under high-cost, and 3 if treated under the National Health Insurance Scheme. The children's hospital was labeled 1 and the adult hospital, 2. To uphold the confidentiality of participants, we also coded the patient's occupation, highest level of education attained and marital status, and these will remain anonymous. The costs expressed in this dataset are in Zambian Kwacha, before adjustment for inflation. In our final report, we converted to equivalent United States dollars (US$). [US$ 1 = K 20.00] and adjusted for Bank of Zambia inflation of 9.9% as of March 3, 2023 using the formula ‘Real price = Nominal price / (1 + inflation rate)’.