Contributions
Abstract: P912
Type: Poster
Abstract Category: Clinical aspects of MS - Economic burden
Background and Goals: A challenging consequence of MS is the economic burden since many patients need to quit working early because of MS related challenges. The PRO (Patient-Reported Outcomes) study of the EUReMS (European Register for Multiple Sclerosis) project focusses on the identification of differences in quality of life and employment between the participating MS registers.
Methods: Three registers have been elected to participate in the PRO study: the MS-Register der DMSG (Germany), the REJSM - Polish MS register (Poland) and the SMSreg - Svenska Multipel Skleros registret (Sweden). A total of 1965 patients met the study"s inclusion criteria. Since SMSreg has been collecting PRO data for years, it contributed the largest amount of patients (n=1386) while PRO data collection in Poland (n=245) and Germany (n=334) was started in 2013. Data collected up until summer 2014 was analysed in the abstract. A data handling routine has been developed to process and harmonize the heterogeneous data. To adjust for differences in baseline patient characteristics statistical analyses involve multivariable logistic regressions with employment status as outcome.
Results: Substantial differences in the employment rate were found between the registers (p< 0.001). In Germany and Poland one third of the PwMS (People with MS) are employed, in Sweden more than 70%. The majority of the employed Pole has a progressive disease course. In Sweden 85% and in Germany 53% are relapsing-remitting. Of the unemployed PwMS the distribution of disease course is similar to that of the employed PwMS. In Germany, though, the progressive form of MS is now dominating (about 75%). Female (p=0.004) and older (p= 0.025) MS patients were more likely to be without employment.
Conclusion: The data indicate how sensitive employment can be to underlying circumstances. A lot of progress has already been made to keep PwMS longer in employment, but our results indicate that there"s still room for improvement. Especially the Swedish data show that high employment rates of PwMS are possible. Findings of our study might be slightly biased due to different definitions of income-generating work. Also selection biases may remain even after adjustment for covariates due to different data sources, e.g. the analysed data of Germany was primarily collected at a rehab-facility. However, the usage of a variety of data sources offers an underrated potential in assessing heterogeneity and sensitivity of results.
Disclosure: The EUReMS project has received co-funding from (1) the European Union in the
framework of the Second Health Programme 2008 and (2) from the following
sponsors: Biogen Idec, Almirall, Bayer Pharma AG,ECTRIMS, GSK, Hoffmann La
Roche, Genzyme, Medtronic Foundation, Merck-Serono, Coloplast, Novartis and
Teva.
Tina Meißner: nothing to disclose
David Ellenberger: nothing to disclose
Karoline Buckow: nothing to disclose
Alexander Stahmann: nothing to disclose
Waldemar Brola: nothing to disclose
Peter Flachenecker: Peter Flachenecker has received speaker"s fees and honoraria for advisory boards from Almirall, Bayer, Biogen Idec, Genzyme, Novartis, Merck-Serono and Teva. He has participated in pharmaceutical company sponsored trials by Almirall, Biogen Idec and Novartis. None resulted in a conflict of interest.
Jan Hillert: Jan Hillert received honoraria for serving on advisory boards for BiogenIdec and Novartis and speaker"s fees from BiogenIdec, Merck-Serono, Bayer-Schering, Teva and Sanofi-Aventis. He has served as P.I. for projects sponsored by, or received unrestricted research support from, BiogenIdec, Merck-Serono, TEVA, Novartis and Bayer-Schering.
Abstract: P912
Type: Poster
Abstract Category: Clinical aspects of MS - Economic burden
Background and Goals: A challenging consequence of MS is the economic burden since many patients need to quit working early because of MS related challenges. The PRO (Patient-Reported Outcomes) study of the EUReMS (European Register for Multiple Sclerosis) project focusses on the identification of differences in quality of life and employment between the participating MS registers.
Methods: Three registers have been elected to participate in the PRO study: the MS-Register der DMSG (Germany), the REJSM - Polish MS register (Poland) and the SMSreg - Svenska Multipel Skleros registret (Sweden). A total of 1965 patients met the study"s inclusion criteria. Since SMSreg has been collecting PRO data for years, it contributed the largest amount of patients (n=1386) while PRO data collection in Poland (n=245) and Germany (n=334) was started in 2013. Data collected up until summer 2014 was analysed in the abstract. A data handling routine has been developed to process and harmonize the heterogeneous data. To adjust for differences in baseline patient characteristics statistical analyses involve multivariable logistic regressions with employment status as outcome.
Results: Substantial differences in the employment rate were found between the registers (p< 0.001). In Germany and Poland one third of the PwMS (People with MS) are employed, in Sweden more than 70%. The majority of the employed Pole has a progressive disease course. In Sweden 85% and in Germany 53% are relapsing-remitting. Of the unemployed PwMS the distribution of disease course is similar to that of the employed PwMS. In Germany, though, the progressive form of MS is now dominating (about 75%). Female (p=0.004) and older (p= 0.025) MS patients were more likely to be without employment.
Conclusion: The data indicate how sensitive employment can be to underlying circumstances. A lot of progress has already been made to keep PwMS longer in employment, but our results indicate that there"s still room for improvement. Especially the Swedish data show that high employment rates of PwMS are possible. Findings of our study might be slightly biased due to different definitions of income-generating work. Also selection biases may remain even after adjustment for covariates due to different data sources, e.g. the analysed data of Germany was primarily collected at a rehab-facility. However, the usage of a variety of data sources offers an underrated potential in assessing heterogeneity and sensitivity of results.
Disclosure: The EUReMS project has received co-funding from (1) the European Union in the
framework of the Second Health Programme 2008 and (2) from the following
sponsors: Biogen Idec, Almirall, Bayer Pharma AG,ECTRIMS, GSK, Hoffmann La
Roche, Genzyme, Medtronic Foundation, Merck-Serono, Coloplast, Novartis and
Teva.
Tina Meißner: nothing to disclose
David Ellenberger: nothing to disclose
Karoline Buckow: nothing to disclose
Alexander Stahmann: nothing to disclose
Waldemar Brola: nothing to disclose
Peter Flachenecker: Peter Flachenecker has received speaker"s fees and honoraria for advisory boards from Almirall, Bayer, Biogen Idec, Genzyme, Novartis, Merck-Serono and Teva. He has participated in pharmaceutical company sponsored trials by Almirall, Biogen Idec and Novartis. None resulted in a conflict of interest.
Jan Hillert: Jan Hillert received honoraria for serving on advisory boards for BiogenIdec and Novartis and speaker"s fees from BiogenIdec, Merck-Serono, Bayer-Schering, Teva and Sanofi-Aventis. He has served as P.I. for projects sponsored by, or received unrestricted research support from, BiogenIdec, Merck-Serono, TEVA, Novartis and Bayer-Schering.