Noncommunicable diseases and risk of hospitalisation in Kuwait:a generalisable approach using the population-based World Health Survey

Kuwait and countries in the Arabian Gulf region face an alarming prevalence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) that strains their health systems and threatens their economies, exacting far-reaching health and economic tolls. To that end, we estimated the increased risk of hospitalisation associated with diagnoses of most prevalent NCDs in Kuwait using a generalisable approach to establish cross-country disease burden comparisons and effective mitigation metrics. The study analysed responses from a nationally representative sample of 2,165 individuals that self-reported the number of hospitalisations in the last 12-months and NCD diagnoses from the World Health Survey (WHS) – Kuwait 2010. Hospitalisation rates were examined for individuals diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, asthma, chronic lung condition, heart disease or angina, and stroke. Through group comparisons and statistical models, we found that hypertension, the most common NCD in Kuwait, was associated with a 75 percent increase in hospital admissions. In addition, heart disease was associated with a 495 percent increase in the risk of hospital admission after adjusting for potential confounders. Elevated hospitalisation risks associated with NCDs call for an urgent shift of resources to mitigate the subsequent morbidity, mortality, and burden on Kuwait’s curative health services. We estimated the substantial burden on curative services associated with NCDs in Kuwait through a readily available, standardised approach to compare hospitalisation rates related to NCDs across over 70 countries that participated in the WHS.