Societal costs per patient
Societal costs per patient included hospital costs per injection (earlier described), other healthcare costs, transport costs and costs for caregiver’s time. Hospital costs per injection and transport costs per injection were multiplied by the number of injections for each patient to estimate the cost per patient.Other healthcare costs were eye—and homecare costs. Eyecare costs were defined as costs for a consultation either at St. Olavs Hospital or at the patient’s local eye clinic (Table Homecare costs was specified as costs for community-based homecare per year. The patient’s homecare use was registered at baseline and the end of the StO-study. The weekly costs were calculated by multiplying mean hours per week with the wage cost per hour of homecare personnel (Table Transport costs were calculated as the sum of travel costs (to eyecare and injections) for the patient and costs of the caregiver’s time of travelling plus waiting. The travel costs for the patient and the caregiver were calculated by measuring the distance and travel time from home to hospital and from home to eyecare with a web-based map [