Treatment preferences in relation to fatigue of patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis: A discrete choice experiment

Background: Treatment decisions for multiple sclerosis (MS) are influenced by many factors such as disease symptoms, comorbidities, and tolerability.

Objective: To determine how much relapsing MS patients were willing to accept the worsening of certain aspects of their MS in return for improvements in symptoms or treatment convenience.

Methods: A web-based discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted in patients with relapsing MS. Multinomial logit models were used to estimate relative attribute importance (RAI) and to quantify attribute trade-offs.

Results: The DCE was completed by 817 participants from the US, the UK, Poland, and Russia. The most valued attributes of MS therapy to participants were effects on physical fatigue (RAI = 22.3%), cognitive fatigue (RAI = 22.0%), relapses over 2 years (RAI = 20.7%), and MS progression (RAI = 18.4%). Participants would accept six additional relapses in 2 years and a decrease of 7 years in time to disease progression to improve either cognitive or physical fatigue from "quite a bit of difficulty" to "no difficulty."

Conclusion: Patients strongly valued improving cognitive and physical fatigue and were willing to accept additional relapses or a shorter time to disease progression to have less fatigue. The impact of fatigue on MS patients' quality of life should be considered in treatment decisions.