Emotional and Economic Costs of Chronic Disease

Chronic disease is a disease that lasts three months or longer and cannot be cured or prevented by vaccines or medication. Common types of chronic disease include ALS, Alzheimer's, arthritis, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, eating disorders, heart disease, obesity, oral health and osteoporosis.

While the impact of chronic disease on livelihood is easy to imagine, the emotional and economic costs of chronic disease often go unnoticed.

6 emotional impacts of chronic disease

The emotional cost of chronic disease is one of the more challenging aspects to face with fighting chronic illness.  

• Guilt

One of the biggest emotions patients feel is guilt. Guilty for having gotten sick, guilty for not getting better, guilty for failing to meet commitments that were easy before developing the disease.

• Grief - Patients with chronic disease feel grief for the life they used to have and often, for themselves. A sense of loss accompanies falling into the depths of long-term illness.

• Denial - In the beginning, many patients deny that there is anything wrong. Working through the denial of chronic illness is the first step in getting onto the road to recovery.

• Shame- Shame haunts patients with chronic illness. Patients feel a sense of failure for having developed an illness. The shame patients carry with them only exacerbates emotions, making it more difficult to recover.

• Isolation - Whether treatment is self-imposed or created by others turning away, patients often feel isolated throughout the duration of their illness. In these cases, patients are urged to be honest with friends and family about how they are feeling, their progress through recovery, and their emotional state.

• Helplessness - Fatigue tends to make solutions and recovery feel impossible. As patients face the fear of their unknown recovery, a lack of energy results in an overwhelming helplessness.

The economic cost of chronic disease

When patients are diagnosed with chronic diseases, the economic effects are major, too.

Job loss

Chronic conditions result in fatigue, which significantly impacts a patient’s ability to get out of bed and to work in hopes of making it throughout the day. Patients with chronic illness often lose their jobs during recovery and struggle to find new work when they offer chronic disease as the reason for leaving their last employment position.

Medical bills

Not only is income strained during battles with chronic disease, but medical bills are through the roof. Diagnostic testing is expensive and lengthy, and patients are constantly referred to specialty doctors who are less likely to accept insurance.

Chronic diseases in developed and developing countries

The economic and emotional burdens of chronic disease are heavyweights to bear, and they go beyond the individual and begin to weigh down countries, too. In the U.S., 86 percent of health expenditures go toward treating the effects of chronic disease and mental health.

The burden of chronic disease plagues developed and developing countries, alike. Diabetes is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases affecting populations, killing at least a million people per year. When diabetes is not directly responsible for fatalities, related issues are taking lives through high blood sugar, heart disease, and stroke.

Chronic disease continues to be a problem in developed countries, and as global efforts minimize acute disease outbreaks in developing countries, chronic conditions are slipping in to affect the masses.

While chronic conditions plague the economy of developing countries, draining the workforce and healthcare resources, you can imagine the burden of chronic disease on developing economies, where resources are not widely available, and the economy cannot support a dwindling workforce.

When it comes to chronic diseases, preventing them from occurring in the first place through healthy lifestyle behaviors must become the new standard.

Help your patients understand how their lifestyle impacts their health by encouraging them to use our data-driven lifestyle management platform. With HealthSnap, you can easily view and understand your patient’s lifestyle health in a tangible report and make data-driven care decisions based on lifestyle data.

Reach out to HealthSnap to learn more about our RPM and CCM solutions, today.