Impact of a Patient Support Program on Patient Beliefs About Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Persistence to Anti-Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Therapy

Figures & data

Table 1 Patient Support Program Participant Demographics

Demographics	%
Sex
Female	61
Male	38
Unknown	2
Age group
51–60 years	1
61–70 years	7
71–74 years	7
75–79 years	13
80–84 years	20
85–89 years	23
90 years or over	26
Unspecified	3
With a nominated carer	22
Eyes affected
One	23
Two	71
Unknown	6
Treatment status
Treatment-naïve	50
Switch	32
Unknown	18

Figure 1 Treatment persistence in patients enrolled in the PSP vs the 10% PBS data set.

Abbreviations: PBS, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; PSP, patient support program.

Table 2 Persistence to Patient Support Program by Year of Enrollment

Year of Enrollment	N	Persistence to Program at 24 Months	95% CI
2012	112	71.3%	63.3–80.4%
2014	781	85.3%	82.7–87.9%
2016	484	87.0%	83.9–90.3%
2018	178^a	88.9%	83.5–94.2%

Notes: ^aProgram completers only, that is patients who have participated in the telephone call at 24 months. 2018 figures are for program completers only as the program is ongoing.

Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval.

Table 3 Predictors of Persistence on Program from Cox Proportional Hazards Regression Model

Patient Attribute	Regression Coefficient	Hazard Ratio	p value	CI (Lower 0.95)	CI (Upper 0.95)
nAMD high-risk patient^a	1.469	4.34	<0.0001	3.00	6.29
nAMD low-risk patient	0.829	2.29	<0.0001	1.55	3.39
Age range 61–70 years^b	−0.750	0.47	0.03	0.24	0.93
Age range 71–80 years^c	−0.904	0.40	<0.001	0.22	0.75
Age range over 80 years^c	−0.973	0.38	<0.01	0.21	0.69
HCP distance over 100 km^c	0.482	1.62	<0.01	1.15	2.28

Notes: ^aReference category: patients treated prior to the introduction of risk stratification; ^breference category: 51–60 years; ^creference category: <20 km.

Abbreviations: AMD, age-related macular degeneration; CI, confidence interval; HCP, healthcare professional; nAMD, neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Figure 2 Persistence by risk category.

Notes: The risk stratification was based on combinations of the risk factors identified in the Cox proportional hazards regression model: that is, younger, high-risk patients, who live further from their HCP have a lower persistence than older, low-risk patients, who live less than 100 km from their HCP. Note there are differences in the number of patients in each risk category (low (n=485), medium (n=897) and high (n=30)).

Abbreviation: HCP, healthcare professional.

Figure 3 Patient satisfaction (mean ± SD) with the patient support program.

Note: Standard deviations are truncated at the upper level of patient satisfaction (10).

Abbreviations: ACT, Australian Capital Territory; NSW, New South Wales; QLD, Queensland; SA, South Australia; SD, standard deviation, TAS, Tasmania; VIC, Victoria, WA, Western Australia.