influence of physical activities practice on the treatment costs of patientes from a healthcare cooperative

Abstract

AbstractThere is several studies that show high rates of physical inactivity in the adult population in Brazil and wordwide. Physical inactivity apresents not only personal risk of disease, additionaly it has and economic cost to family, society and individual. Researchs that seek to investigate the relationship of hospital treatment costs and physical activity level of patients linked to a health cooperative, through tephone survey are scarce in Brazil. Objective. This research sought to explore possible associations between current physical activity with indicators of morbidity and cost to a health cooperative. Metodology. The sample will be composed of a private health plan users, aged e 50 years. To calculate the required sample, it was found that 40% of the population of São Paulo have any private health plan signature (Kilsztajn et al., 2001), in addition, we adopted a sampling error of 4% (arbitrary because there is no other similar studies), 5% significance (z=1.96 by using a CI95%) and a design effect of 60% (by using cluster sampling [age group]) the total sample to be evaluated is, at least, 1021 subjects aged between 50 and 80 years. The cost of treatment through the medical records will be assessed, computing the spendings of each patient over a year with appointments, tests and medicines provided. Nutritional status, body composition, surgery, hemodynamics and biochemical tests, habitual physical activity will be considered as independent variables. In statistical analysis, will be used chi-square tests and Poisson regression for categorical data and one-way ANOVA for numeric data. The Stata software version 8.0 will be used in all tests and statistical significance will be adopted below 5%.Keywords: Cost, physical activity, telephone interviews, the private health system.Keywords: Cost, physical activity, risk factors, private health system.