Perspectives and experiences of Dutch multiple sclerosis patients and multiple sclerosis-specialized neurologists on injectable disease-modifying treatment

Figures & data

Table 1 Factors in deciding what treatment to take (patient report)

Factors for treatment choice	Percentage of patients who believed the factor to be important	Importance, mean (SD)
How effective the treatment would be in reducingrelapses	51	4.5 (0.9)
How effective the treatment would be in reducingdisease progression	54	4.5 (0.9)
Possible side effects from taking the treatment	40	3.6 (1.1)
How the treatment would be taken	30	3.0 (1.4)
How frequently the treatment would be taken	41	3.3 (1.5)
How it could affect your quality of life	29	4.2 (0.9)
Long-term safety profile of the treatment	22	3.9 (1.2)
Availability of a patient program (offering instructions for administration)	4	3.0 (1.3)
Other factor	13	1.9 (1.4)

Notes: Importance is scored on a scale from 1 (not important at all) to 5 (extremely important). Mean (SD) is noted. Patient-rated importance scores all varied between 1 and 5.

Abbreviation: SD, standard deviation.

Table 2 Treatment goals discussed according to patients and neurologists

Treatment goals	Percentage of patients (N=107) indicating that the treatment goal was sufficiently discussed with them	Percentage of neurologists (N=18) indicating that they discussed the treatment goal with their patients
Longer between/less frequency of attacks/episodes/flare-ups	76	89
Decrease in severity of attacks/episodes/flare-ups	72	83
Reduction in disease progression	69	94
Maintains current status/condition	76	72
Prevents symptoms getting worse (eg, cognition, fatigue)	65	61
Long-term disability is reduced/prolongs time to long-term disability	55	94
Reduction in new MRI lesions	54	94
Less reduction in total brain volume	23	11
Improvement in quality of life	57	50

Abbreviation: MRI, magnetic resonance imaging.

Figure 1 Main reasons why MS patients may take a break or stop their injectable MS treatment according to the neurologists.

Notes: Horizontal axis denotes the percentage of neurologists who consider the indicated reason as the main reason. Multiple selections are possible.
Abbreviation: MS, multiple sclerosis.

Figure 2 Sources or services used by the patients to get more information on how to manage the MS treatment more effectively.

Notes: Horizontal axis denotes the percentage of patients using the source. Multiple selections are possible.
Abbreviations: MS, multiple sclerosis; GP, general practitioner.

Figure 3 Answer to the question “What new treatment/innovation do you believe would be likely to benefit you most, as an MS patient, if it was available?”.

Notes: Horizontal axis denotes the percentage of patients choosing the treatment. Only one selection is possible.
Abbreviation: MS, multiple sclerosis.

Figure 4 Answer to the question “Which treatment/management interventions do you believe would be likely to benefit MS patients the most if they were available?”.

Notes: Horizontal axis denotes the percentage of neurologists choosing the treatment. Only one selection is possible.
Abbreviation: MS, multiple sclerosis.