Sarah Shoemaker, PhD; Alyssa Pozniak, PhD; Louise Hadden, BA

Correspondence: Sarah Shoemaker, PhD, Abt Associates Inc., 55 Wheeler St., Cambridge, MA 02138; e-mail: sarah_shoemaker@abtassoc.com.

Background: While hundreds of quality indicators (QIs) have been developed for various chronic conditions, QIs specific to multiple sclerosis (MS) care have only recently been developed. Our objective is to examine the extent to which the self-reported care of individuals with MS meets four recently developed MS QIs related to treatment of depression, spasticity, fatigue, and timely initiation of disease-modifying agents (DMAs) for relapsing MS.

Materials and Methods: Using the Sonya Slifka Study data, we examined the proportion of the MS population who met four QIs (based on patient-reported data) in a sample of individuals with MS in 2007–2009. For the three diagnoses, meeting the QI was defined as receiving appropriate medication or seeing a provider for treatment of the diagnosis; for timely initiation, it was defined as receiving a DMA within 3 months of a relapsing MS diagnosis. We also examined differences in characteristics between respondents who met the QI versus those who did not.

Results: Our analysis found that about two-thirds of people with MS in our sample, per our pre-defined criteria, met the QIs for treatment of depression, management of spasticity, and DMA initiation within 3 months of a relapsing diagnosis, and about a fifth met the QI for management of fatigue. There were some significant differences in characteristics between respondents who met the QIs and those who did not.

Conclusions: This study provides an examination of a subset of MS QIs based on patient-reported data. Additional data sources are needed to fully assess compliance with MS QIs.