Drug adherence and multidisciplinary care in patients with multiple sclerosis: protocol of a prospective, web-based, patient-centred, nation-wide, Dutch cohort study in glatiramer acetate treated patients (CAIR study)

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Glatiramer Acetate in the context of multiple sclerosis, published as a clinical trial.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system, for which no definitive treatment is available.

Most patients start with a relapsing-remitting course (RRMS).

Who Took Part

All RRMS patients in the Netherlands starting GA treatment are eligible.

Patients are informed by neurologists, nurses, and websites from national MS patient organisations.

How the Study Was Run

All data, except on disability, are obtained by patient self-reports on pre-defined and random time points.

Per care discipline the number of sessions and the total duration of care are measures of received care.

The full spectrum of non-experimental care that is available in the Netherlands is assessed.

Care includes 'physical' contacts, contacts by telephone or internet, health-promoting activities and community care activities.

Care received over the preceding 14 days is assessed by patients at baseline and every other week thereafter up to month 12.

What Was Measured

Every 3 months neurologists and nurses record care disciplines to which patients have been referred.The Dutch Adherence Questionnaire-90 (DAQ-90) is a 90-item questionnaire based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) 2003 report on adherence and comprehensively assesses five domains of evidence-based determinants of adherence: socio-economic, health care and caregivers, disease, treatment, and patient-related factors.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Cohort Studies, Glatiramer Acetate, Immunosuppressive Agents, Internet, Multiple Sclerosis, Netherlands and Peptides.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a clinical trial of Glatiramer Acetate in people with multiple sclerosis.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2011 (BMC neurology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Glatiramer Acetate compound page, Multiple sclerosis research.