A study about management of drugs for leprosy patients under medical monitoring: A solution based on AHP-Electre decision-making methods

PLoS One. 2023 Feb 13;18(2):e0276508. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276508. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's, is one of the listed neglected tropical diseases as a major health problem global. Treatment is one of the main alternatives, however, the scarcity of medication and its poor distribution are important factors that have driven the spread of the disease, leading to irreversible and multi-resistant complications. This paper uses a distribution methodology to optimize medication administration, taking into account the most relevant attributes for the epidemiological profile of patients and the deficit in treatment via Polychemotherapy. Multi-criteria Decision Methods were applied based on AHP-Electre model in a database with information from patients in the state of Para between 2015 and 2020. The results pointed out that 84% of individuals did not receive any treatment and, among these, the method obtained a gain in the distribution of 68% in patients with positive diagnosis for leprosy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Data Management
  • Databases, Factual
  • Drug Therapy, Combination
  • Humans
  • Leprosy* / diagnosis
  • Leprosy* / drug therapy
  • Leprosy* / epidemiology
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations

Substances

  • Pharmaceutical Preparations

Grants and funding

This work was supported by CNPq (486183/2013-0 CNPq grant for MS; 448741/2014-8 grant for JB; 428964/2016-8 grant and 313633/2018-5 fellowship for CS; and 306815/2018-4 grant for ^AR-d-S), CAPES PROAMAZONIA 3288/2013, CAPES Biocomputacional – RPGPH (3381/2013), Brazil Ministry of Health 035527/2017, PROPESP/UFPA, VALE S.A. 27756/2019, Fulbright Scholar to Brazil 2019-2020 (JS), and the Heiser Program of the New York Community Trust for Research in Leprosy (JB, MS, CS, and JS) grants P15-000827, P16-000796, and P18-000250. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the report.