Impact of adherence to disease-modifying therapies on employment among veterans with multiple sclerosis

Abstract

Purpose

Patients who adhere to their disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) have a lower rate of MS-related relapses and disability. We sought to determine the adherence rate to DMTs and the association between adherence to DMTs and employment in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Method

One hundred and forty-two patients with MS who were periodically followed in our clinic between January 2000 and January 2020. We compared three groups of patients, defined according to their adherence to DMTs (non-adherent; poorly adherent; adherent), on their obtaining paid employment.

Results

Forty-seven MS patients (33.1%) were non-adherent to any DMT medication, while 88 MS patients (62.0%) demonstrated good and 7 (4.9%) poor adherences. More patients in the good-adherence group were in paid employment 42.0% compared to 23.4% in the non-adherent group (p = 0.587) after controlling for potential co-founders.

Conclusion

In this study veterans who adhered to their DMTs were 2.4 times more likely to be in paid-employment compared to non- or poorly-adherent patients. The clinical significance of this study is to encourage MS patients to adhere to their DMTs as a motivating factor of being in paid-employment.

Implications for rehabilitation

• What is known about this subject? In the setting of a randomized controlled trial adherence rates reported for different injectable DMTs vary from 79–85% for once a week interferon beta-1a (IM IFNb-1a) to 49–78% for other injectable DMTs.

• •What are the new findings and/or impact on clinical practice?

• •Paid employment was more common among veterans whose adherence to DMTs was good (42.0% employed) or poor (42.9%) than among those who were non-adherent (23.4%). Veterans who adhered to DMTs were also younger, had less severe MS, and displayed less cognitive and physically impairment than those who did not adhere.

• •Being employed can act as a motivating factor to encourage adherence to treatment aimed at preventing accumulation of mental and physical disabilities.

Keywords:

• Multiple sclerosis
• disease modifying drugs
• adherence
• employment
• veterans

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meheroz H. Rabadi

Dr. Meheroz H. Rabadi: Study concept and design, data acquisition, Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content study supervision.

Kimberly Just

Ms. Kimberly Just: Data acquisition.

Chao Xu

Dr. Chao Xu: Analysis and interpretation, critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content.