Situation
Many patients in Saudi Arabia suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS) had difficulty adhering to their prescribed treatment plan for a number of reasons:
Psychological. The disease affects the psychological status of patients. They often feel alone, needing someone to listen to them and provide assurance. Without this, patients can be less invested in decisions regarding their own treatment.
Awareness. There is a lack of disease and treatment awareness among patients. When patients don’t prioritize their disease, it can mean missing appointments and ignoring medical recommendations, which results in worse medical outcomes and failure to control the disease.
Self-administration. MS patients are often expected to inject the medication themselves. Though this saves time and inconvenience, some patients do not have prior experience administering their own treatment which can lead to non-compliance.
Healthcare providers often don’t have the time to address these individual challenges on their own given their patient load and other responsibilities, requiring other parties to step in to complement their efforts by providing additional support to patients once they left the hospital. To help improve treatment adherence rates among MS patients in Saudi Arabia, Axios partnered with a multinational pharmaceutical company that was eager to do the same.
Solution
Axios partnered with a multinational pharmaceutical company to develop a personalized adherence program for patients living with MS in Saudi Arabia.
Using Axios’ Patient Needs Assessment Tool, or PNAT, the program identified individual risk factors that could lead to treatment discontinuation and used those insights to develop personalized adherence plans.
In partnership with the Ministry of Health, local MS patient associations and other stakeholders, the program provided a range of support, including disease and treatment education, an on demand support careline, treatment reminders, follow up plans, patient forums and auto injectors when requested.
The approach allowed Axios to address different adherence barriers through different interventions, rather than treating every patient in the same way.
Results
Because of the work of Axios and its partners in Saudi Arabia, 55 physicians across the country referred nearly 600 of their MS patients into the program achieving a treatment adherence rate among those enrolled of 97%.
The program also demonstrated the value of identifying individual patient needs. In one example, a patient’s difficulty with self injection was identified through a patient forum. Axios staff subsequently provided regular support to help her become comfortable administering the treatment herself.
